


faux cat day

by fiveofswords



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Comedy, Fake Wedding, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24030880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveofswords/pseuds/fiveofswords
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man who’s just tried to swindle his own father out of a considerable sum of money must be in want of someone as equally stupid as himself to pull the scam off.
Relationships: Leo Manfred/Gavin Reed
Comments: 84
Kudos: 117





	1. Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man who’s just tried to swindle his own father out of a considerable sum of money because he’s lost all his liquid cash and more in a stupid poker game (which some motherfucker had assured him he could not possibly lose) must be in want of a husband, or a fiancé, or a boyfriend, or just someone as equally stupid as himself to pull the scam off.

To trick his dad wasn't his fist thought, but as it often happened in Leo’s life, he set on to do one thing and ended plunging himself head first into a rabbit's hole of dire and strange consequences.

“So… you need money” His father’s voice said through the phone, with that well known, irritating, silent sigh of feed up disappointment

“I mean… yeah, I kinda do”

“How much?”

“like… ten grand...”

Silence

“Dad? You still there?”

“Yes…”

“Good, good…”

Silence

“You know it’s not like... I need the money because I lost everything I had at a shitty casino or something…”

This was not a lie, it hadn’t been a casino at all, it had been an underground poker tournament, kinda like dog fights but without the animal cruelty

The now Skeptic silence continued

“I mean, I have been doing really well, getting my shit together, not touching red-ice and all that, I got my 2 year chip a week ago, I still have my job, that’s going… alright…”

“… I know all of this”

“Cool, cool…”

“So if you are doing fine, what do you need all that money for?”

“Well, I mean…” Leo said swiping the pages of the virtual magazine in his hands, when his eyes fell on an article about a stupid royal wedding or some shit “Jeez, weddings…” Leo babbled in feverish despair, grasping at miserable, delusional straws “weddings are expensive aren’t they… there’s so much stuff and shit to get…”

“Leo!” his dad all but shouted into the phone

“Dad…?”

“These are truly wonderful news!”

“I mean…” why the heck not “Sure… I guess…”

“You’ll get the deposit first thing in the morning!”

“What?! for real?” Leo perked up “That’s– that’s great!”

Leo could hear some movement in the background, possibly Markus’ voice, then his dad's muffled answer 'I'll be there in a minute, son'

"I must go now, Leo," Carl said back into the phone "we are preparing for an interview, talk to you later, bye bye”

The call clicked off and Leo sighed in relief. He had gotten his deposit, money for the scary poker debt and his rent and even a bit to spare which he held on to, he wasn’t completely stupid. He’d almost forgotten all about it a few weeks later, when his phone rang displaying his dad’s number. That was unusual.

“Hello?” Leo said bracing himself to hear Markus give him bad news.

“Leo?”

“Oh, Dad? What’s up, everything okay?”

“Well, I was wondering” Carl said with unusual hesitance “Markus and I haven’t gotten an invitation and I was starting to worry, our schedules have to be planed ahead”

“Hmm, Invited to what?” Leo asked carelessly, even letting out a little laugh

“To your wedding, of course”

“Oh..? Oohh”

_Shit_

“Listen, son”

_Son? This wasn’t good_

“I know I haven’t been the best father for you,”

_This wasn’t good at all_

“And I have missed so many milestones in your life, but I would hate to miss this one and I understand why you wouldn’t want me or Markus there but –”

“No, hey listen, of course you guys would be invited” Leo guessed “but…”

Leo considered telling the truth for an entire fraction of a second before more untruths flowed out, just like that fairy tale about the girls who couldn’t talk because frogs and lizards would slither out of their mouths,

“but… I mean, your invitation must have gotten delayed or something … the thing isn’t even on for like another… two months?”

_Ribbit_

“Could you give me the date? I want to make sure we leave it open”

“Sure… how does… August 8 sound?”

_Ribbit_

“Excellent! I will tell Markus that no matter what August 8 is taken, and I am embarrassed, I realize I didn’t even ask who was your betrothed”

“Oh, you don’t know them”

“Give me their name, I’ll have something engraved for you two”

“Really, you don’t have to do that!”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be anything too gaudy,” Carl replied with a laugh “and I would like to meet them before the big day; it would be quite shameful of me not to”

“Dad, really! We…” who the fuck was we?! “We know how busy you are…”

“Not too busy for this, not this once” Carl said firmly not leaving room for arguments “I’ll make reservations at the Iridescence. This weekend, a quiet family dinner, only Markus, myself and you two, how does that sound? Does that work out for you? I’ll have Simon text you the details”

“Okay… that’s cool” Leo said helplessly, anything to end this fucking call “Listen, I have to go..”

“Oh, yes of course” Carl said cheerfully “Just one more thing, the name of your fiancé, It wouldn’t do for me not to know it when I see them for the first time”

Leo’s mind ran wildly over the list of his acquaintances, only a handful of which he counted as actual friends, there was Jay who was housebound, Simon was way too close to it, there was no way anyone would ever believe Tina Chen would waste her time on a man, and Amber was off somewhere selling handmade jewelry in renaissance fairs… so that only left him with…

“Gavin Reed?” Leo ribbitted miserably,

“Perfect!” Carl Manfred said “I’ll see you both this saturday, have a good day, son”

“Sure, you too” Leo replied, feeling sick to his stomach

Surely, he could still work his way out of this one, if he cancelled the dinner his dad would only make another reservation, and another, and another, and another, until the stupid wedding date arrived. Now if he went with Gavin maybe they could work out an excuse, his dad would be appeased and he’d forget all about Leo for the customary 16 years or so, by the time his dad remembered he existed again Leo could probably get some “I’m so sorry I didn’t hear about your divorce until now” money. Everything would work out.

+

“So, that’s how it is… ” Leo said rubbing the back of his neck self consciously, all of it did sound completely deranged when he said it out loud. “Dinner is this Saturday, at 9 at the Iridescence… you know that fancy ass restaurant, so at least you’d be getting real fancy food out of it” 

Gavin sat across from him in the tiny coffee shop which didn’t strive for coziness or attracting new faces, being more than happy to cater to the near police station and not much else, their pastries were okay, their coffee above average, and Gavin could always be found there on his breaks.

The Detective barked out a laugh “Fine, alright, you almost got me” he said reclining on his seat “But not even you could get tangled in something this fucking dumb”

“Do you see me laughing, jackass? Why would I even lie about something like this?”

“Why would you lie to your old man about being fucking engaged? Are you even dating anybody?”

“If I were I wouldn’t have to ask you! And, like… I just told you how it all happened!” Leo said irritably “Fine!, you know what, whatever, I can hire an actor to play your part”

“What if the old man googles me?”

“You aren't the only Gavin Reed in the world, not even in the city… probably”

“I’m just saying” Gavin shrugged “Anyone with a brain would be suspicious, and isn’t he super loaded? What if he runs a background check on the guy to protect his assets”

“Oh, please! my dad doesn’t care that much about me” Leo said offhandedly “it’s not like I’m going to be on the will or whatever”

“Well, seems to me you have all covered, good luck” 

“Come on!“ Leo groaned, resting his head on the table with a thud “I’m so fucking tired”

“That’s what happens when you try to pull off criminal shit like this, genius”

“This isn’t criminal” Leo mumbled, “only like… morally corrupt… my dad wouldn’t press charges anyway… at least I don’t think so…”

“Look, just come clean” Gavin said “You still got part of the money, yeah? You give that back, you tell your old man you’ll pay him the rest”

“Ugggh, I’m just so sick of being the disappointment, you know, it was bad enough when it was only me and I was doing badly, but now there’s fucking Markus –“

“Yeah, yeah, I have heard this same shit about a thousand times”

Leo groaned

“Hey, you are not the only one with crap to whine about,” Gavin cut in “I told Captain Fowler I wanted to take the sergeant exam and he said I wasn’t ready yet, can you believe that shit?” Gavin was interrupted by Chris tapping on the glass window near their table “Fuck, time to go back to the bullpen.” He said standing up “Come clean, dumbass, it won’t be that bad, you’ll get fancy ass food out of it” 

Leo groaned louder, and he was still groaning, albeit, mentally, when he found himself sitting at the Iridescence. Dressed in his best suit, which wasn’t saying much, he’d last worn it for his job interview at the coffee shop, and the clothing store, and the pet store, and the book store and the thrift store that had finally hired him.

He looked around, noticing with relief he didn’t look terribly underdressed when compared to the other costumers, he tried to hold on to that feeling because he was definitely underdressed in comparison to his dad and Markus, apparently they couldn’t go to the corner store without breaking into the Comme des Garçons or some shit, now that Markus was all over the news.

“So, Leo…” His dad started once they had ordered their food, but they were interrupted by an android coming to their table, obviously to shake hands with Markus.

_‘Listen’_ Leo rehearsed in his head ‘ _I know it was fucking dumb, but I lied to you about getting married almost without thinking really, because I needed the money for a betting debt’_ that sounded super cool, awesome, great

“Sorry about that,” Markus said

“No worries, Listen…”

Leo faltered; he couldn’t do it, not in the middle of this fucking restaurant with people turning to look at Markus with curious awe like he was some sort of movie star. He got his phone out instead.

“I’ll just text Gavin again… sometimes he stays to work late… it’s all he does really”

Leo pressed send on what had to be the 30th message he’d sent him that day, offering Gavin stuff, he’d cook for him, take his cats to the vet so they wouldn’t hate him for taking them to get their shots, he’d clean his cats’ litter boxes for a year… two years… alright five…

“So what does he do?” Carl asked, of course that would be his dad’s first question, not that it was an unusual question, just –

“He’s a detective” Leo said, puffing up a little for some reason

His Dad and Markus looked at each other

“What?” Leo frowned dangerously, there was no way, no way they could have found fault with Gavin already, he wasn’t some junkie weirdo

“So, he’s Detective Gavin Reed, with the DPD” Markus said

“You googled him?” Leo said in disgust, he’d never tell Gavin he’d been right

“We were curious about whom he was, we wondered if we could find him and guess” Carl said carefully “Son, are you sure…”

“Of what?” Leo said defensively “What can possibly be wrong with Gavin? You haven’t even met him yet”

Another look was shared between his Dad and Markus, Leo was starting to get quite feed up of all of it, maybe he could storm out, that would fix everything.

“I have seen him around the DPD” Markus said, “The Jericho liaisons work mostly with Lieutenant Anderson and Connor, but we have been told the DPD wants to introduce a second android affairs team. Detective Reed seems to be the person most qualified for it after Lieutenant Anderson, but we, at Jericho, have had some doubts about it”

“He’s quite vocal about his anti-android views it seems” Carl added

“Look, Gavin is a fucking asshole with a big ass mouth–”

“We are calling the whole fucking thing off then”

Leo looked up, his mouth half open, and there was Gavin, looking just as if he’d fished him out of the DPD dumpster. The restaurant lighting didn’t do any favors to the dark circles around his eyes, or the sweaty film over his face that was to be expected after a hard day’s of work. He took a seat next to Leo without even acknowledging the other two. The android that had been following on his heels to tell him there _was_ a dress code pivoted back to his station by the door as soon as he saw which table he sat at.

“I’m fucking starving”

“You are here” Leo stated the obvious

“You told me to come” Gavin said starting to wolf down the first thing he could reach

“Want to take it easy on that bread basket?” Leo said, amused

“Fuck if I will,”

Leo almost grinned, he’d seen this before, this was the -I have been working until way too late on stupid paperwork and not had anything but coffee since 10 am because androids don’t eat or drink or go to the bathroom and I have to keep up even if it kills me- Gavin

“So, here he is, Gavin” Leo said, gesturing to his side “he’s real and he’s here” he added

“ Yes, of course, we see…” his dad said, “we see that”

Both Carl and Markus looked slightly taken aback, Leo’s night had greatly improved in the last few seconds, he wasn’t even mad when yet another person, a man this time not an android, a man with markedly fishy features that tapped on Markus shoulder to greet him and Markus seemed to recognize, interrupted them

“Ian! I’m very sorry” Markus told him “You are welcome at Jericho at any time tomorrow, but this is my brother’s engagement dinner, so if we could…”

“Oh, of course, my apologies” the man said sincerely, “Congratulations!” he added with a nod towards Leo and Gavin

Leo nodded back somewhat awkwardly, no need for yet more people to hear about this

“Sure, whatever” Gavin said, his mouth full, bread crumbs falling from his mouth

“I’m Carl Manfred” his dad took the floor to introduce himself, since nobody else was doing it “Leo’s father”

“I know who you are” Gavin replied with his customary charm, “and you are the android baby jesus”

“I’m Markus…”

“Yeah, sure” Gavin said carelessly, turning his attention to the waitress, pointing at and mispronouncing things on the menu without a gram of the self-consciousness that would overwhelm Leo at times like this. His Dad and Markus exchanged a perplexed look. Leo’s grin grew wider. 

“So, how did you two meet?” Carl asked conversationally, trying to take the floor again,

Leo couldn’t even remember and damn why didn’t he prepare a fucking story, but he was hardly keeping up. He had no talent for lying or bluffing, if he were good at either of those things he wouldn’t have lost the fucking poker game in the first place, but Gavin answered immediately, as he cut into his steak

“I arrested him for possession”

Oh, right! That was the truth actually, and for some reason Leo didn’t feel a sting from it. Maybe it was because of Gavin’s delivery, completely even and matter of fact, he could as well be saying, “we met at an office party” or some dumb shit like that.

“Is it not unusual –” Carl floundered, and Leo couldn’t remember any time before where he’d seen his dad out of his depth “unusual for a detective to date a… defendant”

Gavin scoffed “Is not like he’s a felon,”

“No, of course not”

“We only became friends after I got clean” Leo added “Right?”

“Well, it was fucking impossible to talk to you before that, not that it’s easy now, but comparatively”

“and.. and I haven’t been arrested since, right?”

“So far” Gavin replied darkly

“Jeez, thanks!” Leo rebuked without any real heat,

“Dad and I brought you something” Markus interjected placing a small box on the table, maybe trying, in all his benevolence, to take the conversation away from Leo’s past of crime

“I told you not to!” 

“It’s something small” his dad assured him, but knowing his dad Leo doubted it

Leo glanced at Gavin, who only raised his eyebrow at him, obviously unwrapping a fucking wedding present was well over his pay grade of bread sticks. Leo reached for it, even the wrapping paper looked expensive, it felt wasteful to tear through it to reach the slim box. Leo opened it to find two extravagant looking fountain pens with an art deco design, with both Leo and Gavin’s names written in an intertwining spidery font and tastefully engraved with a date August 8, 2041.

_Yikes_

“Phck” Gavin said, peeking into the box,

“It’s just a small token” his dad said, a small token that Leo was sure was worth more than both their cars “In case we can’t make it to the big day…” his dad added with an apologetic note.

“Oh, sure, don’t worry about it” Leo said, feeling weirdly startled, maybe he was conditioned to react with hurt when he didn’t know how to react to what his dad said; he’d been talking with his therapist about default emotions. This worked on his favor after all, his dad not going to a wedding that was not even happening, but Leo still had to wonder if it was because of Gavin, or because of him, he found himself being equally irritated by either possibility.

They got to the end of the dinner miraculously without incident, his dad and Markus said their goodbyes, and Leo let out a sigh of relief as Gavin and him walked towards the parking lot.

“Need a ride?” Gavin asked

“Nah, I brought my car” Leo said, taking one of the dreadful fountain pens out of its box “here, your cut”

“No fucking way, this is your thing”

“I can’t take both” Leo argued “I feel lousy taking one already!”

“Didn’t feel lousy when you needed the money”

“Will you stop that, it was that or have my fingers cut off and my teeth pulled out by the mafia or some shit, those people are scary”

“Why would you play with them in the first place,”

“Take it!” Leo said, not wanting to dwell on the subject

“What am I supposed to do with this crap?”

“It’s probably hella expensive, you can like sell it, or pawn it”

“It has our fucking names on it!”

“So? That way they won’t think we stole them”

“Who’d want to buy anything with our fucking names on it?”

“Oh, shit”

“Fucking useless” Gavin said, but he snatched the cursed pen out of Leo’s hand as they reached Leo’s car

“Thanks… for coming…”

“The food was alright” Gavin took out his phone, texting something on it. Leo’s phone went off

“That’s the cats’ vet schedule” Gavin said “Max has to be dewormed next weekend and Rex needs her shots, but be careful, she will try to gouge your eyes out as soon as she realizes what the deal is”

“Oh, sure! of course!”

“And if you can pick up the old lady’s eye drops, Cricket's cataract has been acting up again, that’s fucking important”

“I know, don’t worry, I can do this” 

“See you next weekend then,” Gavin said, walking away “and don’t play fucking poker ever again or I’ll kick your sorry ass!”

+

Gavin drove himself back home, throwing the dumb, useless pen in his glove compartment. He took a quick shower and crashed on his bed unaware of the sinister gears that had been set in motion. His Sunday was uneventful and he spent it blissfully ignorant of it being the last peaceful day he’d have in a long, long time.

On Monday morning he got up for work, not even checking his phone until he was but a few blocks away from the station, noticing he had 7 missed calls from Tina. He frowned, called her back.

“Gavin, what the ever loving fuck!” Tina said not waiting for a greeting “You are all over the news, there are a few reporters waiting for you at the station”

Gavin grimaced “What is it now? Which android fee-fees.exe were stepped on this time? I swear those things are fucking lightweights” he could hear Fowler hollering somewhere in the background

“Okay, gotta go, the boss is on to me” She said “we’ll talk when you get here” 

Gavin huffed, this wasn’t good. Fowler had assigned him his partnership with Nines most likely as a test of sorts, which he’d failed considering how his request to for a promotion had gone. He’d been trying to bite the bullet, not to step on oh so precious, delicate fee-fees, especially those of the goddamn sentient roombas. He couldn’t guess what this was about, but he didn’t doubt for a second he’d looked someone the wrong way, or said something not politically correct in this brave new world where the fragile feelings of household appliances had to be considered.

He stomped into the station, already prepared to glare at cameras, defend his stance, when Sophie, the android receptionist intercepted him.

“Detective Reed, Captain Fowler said you should enter by the back” She said, walking in front of him at a fast, efficient pace, guiding him out of the station. He glanced back, there were only one or two reporters that seemed to be talking to Nines. Gavin frowned, feeling more mystified by the second, it didn’t look that bad, but he’d never been instructed to sneak by the back, like some sort of fucking thug.

Sophie smiled reassuringly at him when she showed him to the bullpen by the alternative entrance, which was… weird… although she was normally pleasant enough. Gavin looked around, everything seemed normal in the surface, quiet, a few of his coworkers gave him looks he couldn’t decipher; they didn’t seem aggressive or angry or disgusted, that was… odd… when Chris saw him he… smiled? That was fucking alarming, no one fucking smiled at the sight of him at 8 am in the morning, Collins nodded good morning to him AND patted him on the back… what the fuck was going on.

“Chen, Reed!” Fowler Boomed, “In my office, now!”

Gavin complied; finally, this was known territory. This was where Fowler shouted at him about how Gavin had to think about work as not only the work he did out there in the field, with which Fowler had never found fault, but also the public relations aspect of it in which Gavin had ample room for improvement

Tina smiled at him as they took a seat in front of Fowler’s desk, it was a mischievous smile he knew well and did not make him feel at ease

“I’m not one for roundabouts,” Fowler smiled paternally as he reached for files in his desk drawer “Chen, is high time for you to make Detective” He said handing her a file

“No way!” Tina said excitedly

“Alright, T!” Gavin said offering a fist bump, at least she was getting good news

“And, Reed” Fowler continued, extending a similar looking file to him “With another Detective around we could do with a new Sergeant”

“What?” Gavin spat “I asked last week and you said –“

Fowler raised his hand and nodded

“In view of the new developments, I considered I may have been rash on my decision. I realize now why you asked last week and I’m sorry about my previous answer, after all a man starting a family would want certain securities,”

“A What?” Gavin choked

Fowler raised his hand again

“It’s not so long ago that Rachel and I got married, I haven’t forgotten how that is. I have always considered your work excellent even if you have a tendency to be reckless, and a bit too hotheaded, but having someone else to think of when you are out there, that cools you down, centers you. So I’m giving you my full recommendation. There’s still the exam for both of you, of course, but I have no doubt you’ll both do excellently”

“Wait a second, I’m not sure what –“

“I don’t think he knows the cat is out of the bag, sir” Tina interjected, mischief in her tone that only someone who knew her from infancy could pick up on “Not even I have gotten an invitation yet”

“Well, naturally,” Fowler said pleasantly, turning his office monitor towards them “After all, the engagement was only this Saturday, I am sorry again about my refusal last week, Reed. I still remember meeting my in-laws, and that’s not a good memory, how come those demons produced someone like my Rachel has always been a mystery to me” he said shaking his head and turning on the monitor to a quote/unquote “news” channel.

As the images flashed on the screen, Gavin wondered if he was dead, he’d died and gone to hell and this was his eternal punishment.

There he was, looking like something dead and unidentified that had been sitting in the sun for too long, stuffing his face in that stupid restaurant, while that fucking fish looking man that had congratulated them was looking at the camera and saying how EXTRAORDINARY it was that Leo Manfred, Carl Manfred’s Human Son, would marry Gavin Reed from the DPD who was better known for his acidic views on androids and his gritty relationship with Jericho despite being the most qualified candidate for the second android affairs team over the last two years.

“It’s not like he’s the leader of an Anti Android Group, Ian” a highly decorative android said chirpily, her LED flashing yellow “or even a member, we checked!”

“Just as well if he was, Kathy” the fish replied “Many anti android groups quote him, and now he’s marrying into the family of what is the equivalent of android royalty, this is, if nothing more, quite intriguing”

“We’ll be looking forward to the scoop” she continued “It seems we got a statement from Detective Nines Anderson at the DPD”

The image changed to the scene Gavin had seen just a few minutes ago. Nines hunching slightly near the reception desks to talk into the microphone

“Detective Reed’s treatment of androids may be subpar,” Nines said evenly, “but it does not altogether diverge from his quite frankly appalling treatment of humans”

Fowler turned it off with a sigh

“This will be a PR nightmare for a while, but we’ll weather it,”

“It’s not the worst controversy Reed has been involved in” Tina chirped

“At least is good news this time” Fowler agreed “I’m sorry they stole your thunder, Reed, but now you can call your in-laws and tell them about your upcoming promotion” the Captain said, clapping his back before they exited the office.

Gavin walked all the way to Tina’s desk feeling he was out of his body, Chris and Collins congratulated him, coworkers he couldn’t remember the name of smiled fondly at him, he was finally holding the file with all the information for his long sought after promotion. _What the fuck._


	2. Chapter 2

Gavin left work in the middle of the morning, something he’d never done before, and it was just as well he did, if anyone gave him one more of those ‘so happy for you’ smiles he was going to knock their teeth out. His tires screeched as he parked near Leo’s apartment building, he flashed his badge to the porter to be let in, fucking lousy security. With no patience for the fucking elevator, he took the stairs two at a time.

He banged on Leo’s door. No answer. He banged again, louder, he’d rip the door off its hinges if necessary.

“I know you are in there, dipshit!” Gavin shouted, Leo never left his apartment before noon

“Gavin?” Leo’s voice was sort of muffled, and Gavin imagined him with one leg out of the window ready to make a run for it down the fire escape, an assumption that was absolutely correct, all those years of detective work were paying off

“Open the fucking door!”

“Give me a freaking second!”

There was a thud from inside which Gavin again guessed correctly was Leo falling to the floor as his pajama pants got stuck on the windowsill, after a bit more shuffling the door finally opened, Gavin strode inside.

“Jeez, what is it?” Leo said, still in his pajamas, his hair ruffled “I nearly shit myself!”

“Maybe if you weren’t up to your ears in turbid fucking deals you wouldn’t be this skittish!”

“I’m not –, anyone would be if they are woken by someone knocking their front door down!”

“It’s fucking eleven thirty on a Monday morning and you were sleeping?!”

“I don’t judge your life!” Leo paused “Wait, shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I was at work!” Gavin strode back and forth in the room trying to organize his thoughts and not kill Leo on the spot; that was the last thing he needed, a dead body to get rid of.

He realized he’d never been in Leo’s apartment before, Gavin wasn’t one for social visits, but it was just like what he’d imagined, ridiculous grey wooden floors you only saw in really fancy house listings, really soft looking blankets seemly everywhere, on the couch, on the chairs, on the window seat because of course Leo would have a fucking window seat in all possibility to look mopingly at the rain. Indoor plants cheered the place up, amazing, Leo could look after something after all, the walls were bare and painted in darkish, greyish blues, it felt… comfortable… safe

Then he turned around and there it was; the most hideous thing his eyes had ever had the misfortune of seeing, and he had been in multiple gruesome and bloody crime scenes.

There, on the wall, was a picture of a taxidermy frog whodunit in striking and bright technicolor, a dead frog dressed in a suit resting in a pool of terribly realistic looking blood, other frogs around it equally poshly dressed, in roles that went from the horrified wife of the slain amphibian and the keen-eyed detective with a stupid mustache, to the sly murderer hiding a bloody needle behind his back. Gavin thought he could have a stroke right at this moment and it would be a mercy.

“What’s that freaky thing and how can you live with it there?” Gavin snapped “Why the fuck there’s nothing else but that on your walls?!”

“It’s not freaky, my mum made it!” Leo said protectively “It’s the only one I have left too, I had others but I sold them, you know, when I was on red-ice,” he continued sheepishly “but at least the real things are, like, with their owners and stuff, you know, couldn’t mess those up, mum only kept pictures of them”

“Your mother… stuffed road kill and dressed it in little suits?”

“Yeah, it’s called art!” Leo said “Like it actually tells a story, it makes sense, not like a bunch of smeared paint, what even is that shit”

“So many things are making so much fucking sense right now”

“So, did you need anything or you only came all the way here to criticize me and my dead mother?”

“Oh yeah,” Gavin said, “the captain said I could take the Sergeant Test” his words drifted absentmindedly, as he was still hypnotized by the frogs, they were trying to tell him something but he didn’t quite get what

“For fucking real?!” Leo exclaimed, and suddenly he was throwing his arms around him, squeezing him into a hug “That’s freaking awesome, Gavin!”

“Okay, that’s not –,” Gavin pushed him away gently “he’s giving me his recommendation because he thinks I’m getting fucking hitched,” he grabbed the nearest throw pillow and smacked Leo with it, repeatedly, it was like trying to bludgeon someone with a cloud

“Wait a second,” Leo said, grabbing another throw pillow to shield himself “why would he think that, you didn’t tell him–“

“Of course I didn’t, unlike you I’m not fucking insane! I didn’t have to, that shitty dinner is all over the news!”

“What?!” Leo scrambled away going into what Gavin could only guess was the bedroom returning a few seconds later with a tablet in his hands, he sat on the couch as Gavin’s nightmare played for him

“Shit.” Leo looked up “Why wouldn’t you tell him we weren’t actually–“

“How the hell would that go?!” Gavin said, omitting the fact that he’d been completely shell shocked and even if he had had words he wouldn’t have been able to use them “It’s not what you think Captain, I’m not actually getting married, we were just scamming the disabled octogenarian out of some dough… and now about that promotion…”

“So, what do we do now?”

“We tell them we are calling it off” Gavin sighed, sitting on the couch, it was stupidly comfortable probably nauseatingly expensive

“I can’t do that, my dad will want his money back” Leo said “so unless you have, like, seven grand I can borrow”

“No go” Gavin replied immediately, he pinched the bridge of his nose “A wedding is just a stupid party, right? What if we have the fucking party?”

“You want us to actually get married?”

“Not for real, obviously”

“But you want to have a freaking wedding?” Leo said in wide-eyed disbelief

“Don’t fucking look at me like that, this was your fucking idea” Gavin spat “I cannot supposedly get married and not have the Captain there!”

Leo stared at him

“What?!” Gavin snapped

“That’s kinda sweet, you know” Leo said with a shrug “having people you feel like that about”

Gavin growled,

“Where – where would we get the money for it though,” Leo took the hint “If you don’t have seven grand for my dad I guess you aren’t up to spend your savings on this either”

“Not a chance”

“I mean,” Leo said after a moments silence “I guess it could be really small? If I were actually getting married I would only have like five people to invite anyway and you are one of them, you heard my dad so he probably wouldn’t even make it…”

“Tina, Chris, and Fowler,” Gavin started counting with his fingers “Collins, Wilson, Person, and Lewis… Nines, I guess, the Anderson freakshow… but Allen can fucking suck it”

“Don’t you have friends outside of work?” Leo asked with a small grin

“Just one but he’s a fucking mental case”

Leo waited expectantly until – “Oh, you mean me?!” he said with a little crooked smile that was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. Gavin was glad for it, since when did he think of anyone’s smile as anything but annoying or fake or –

“It’s my dad” Leo said to what Gavin gestured the universal sign for ‘what do you want _me_ to do about it’

Leo picked up, his finger lingering over the speakerphone function but deciding against it.

“Hey dad, what’s up? …. Yeah, we saw” a LOOK to which Gavin rolled his eyes in agreement “What… seriously, like for real?.... What? I don’t see why he has to….” A dangerous frown to which Gavin could only answer with the universal sign for ‘I don’t know what the fuck you are saying’ to which Leo replied hitting him right in the face with his throw pillow shield “I mean, I’d have to ask Gavin about it… okay… sure… see ya!”

“So?”

“There’s good news, and bad news” Leo said with a sigh “or you know what, honestly at this point I don’t even know”

+

The good news: Carl Manfred had offered to pay for the wedding, everything they could possibly want “Don’t worry if you can’t get refunds for what you have already paid, son” of course for his dad those ten grand were peanuts.

The bad news: this was in no way strings free, and not surprisingly the strings had to do with Markus and Android affairs or whatever, apparently not even Leo’s fucking wedding could take the focus away from stupid, perfect Markus, but, Leo had to remind himself, the wedding was not real, and as it was this worked out for them, so they agreed to it, Gavin would pick Leo up that night after work to meet one or two journalists at his dad’s, nothing big… for now…

Gavin was who they really wanted, for all his dad and Markus had said to him at the dinner, it turned out that in second thought it would be quite beneficial to “the cause” to have someone who had been as vocally anti-android as Gavin marrying into Markus’ family, showing people his integration into the Manfred clan, which coincidentally had been the first to officially adopt an android, what a joke, Leo was hardly part of the family as it was.

“Are you ready for this?” Leo asked nervously pulling on the sleeves of the jacket of exactly the same suit he’d worn to the dinner as they stood in front of the door of the Manor

“Ready to kiss plastic ass?” Gavin said drily “Never.” he stared at Leo for a second “What the fuck do you keep doing to your hair?”

“What do you mean?” Leo had been spending about two hours in front of the mirror combing his hair back and trying to make it stay in a way that his dad would think presentable, before the dinner, before this…

“It’s all flat, squashed... ugly”

“Same as your face then” Leo hissed moodily, this wasn’t a great time to dwell on how ill fitted he was to step in the Manfred Household, he rang the bell and Markus himself opened the door

“Dad is waiting for you in the living room” he said

“Cool.”

Markus nodded and took his coat off the hanger as if preparing to go out

“Hey wait, where are you going?” Leo called after him “Isn’t this like your thing too?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Markus sighed “Listen, Leo, I am sorry about all of this. Ian talked with dad, and then dad was making calls before I knew anything about it, by the time he told me you had already agreed to… this”

“Well, I mean,” Leo said, slightly taken aback, Markus had never apologized to him for anything, not that there was anything for him to apologize for… technically...

Markus smiled slightly “I’ll try to keep as out of it as I can, alright”

“Because of Gavin” Leo stated feeling a slight pang of indignation, glancing at where Gavin was loitering, waiting for him in the foyer, grimacing at the fake birds like they were runny poop in a cage

“Because it’s your wedding, and it should be about you” Markus amended

“Oh, uhm..”

“And Leo… you can call me if you need me to talk to dad, make him step back a little; you know how he is when he gets an idea“

“Okay…”

They nodded at each other somewhat stiffly, Markus stepped out

“Hey…” Leo called after him “Thanks… Markus”

“Good luck” Markus said before closing the door which didn’t fill Leo with reassurance of what was to come

They showed themselves into the living room where they were greeted not only by his dad, but also by that stupid pair of unsettlingly cheery reporters that had spilled it all on national television.

“We’d like to follow you during the weeks before the wedding” the pretty android, Kathy, explained, her LED swirling yellow “You know, all the excitement of the wedding preparations, that sort of thing. Detective Reed interacting with Markus and Mr. Manfred of course, maybe the android detectives at the station, and we have already gotten the green light from Mr. K –”

“I’m not taking any of this shit to the station” Gavin cut in with a disgusted scowl

“It’s his work, you know” Leo added trying to soften it

The pretty android smiled “Oh, of course! At the station it would only be a couple of interviews, some footage, no more”

“And we’d make sure to ask for the Captain’s permission” her human counterpart added

“Like you asked our permission to air our fucking business” Gavin spat

Leo tried to ignore the stupid fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach, chalking it down to anxiety, obviously seeing his dad and Markus this often was not good for him, and there was also the thing about lying not only to his immediate family but to the entire world, it was absolutely not triggered by Gavin calling stuff “our fucking business” even if it did feel nice to be part of that particular our

Ian smiled a weird smile, Leo thought maybe it was apologetic, but if he were good at reading faces they wouldn’t be falling down this particular rabbit hole. Gavin crossed his arms and glared, the stupid reporter knew something they didn’t. The bell rang.

“I thought it was only going to be us?” Leo said

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s only family today” Kathy replied, which didn’t really answer Leo’s question

The AP700 usually in charge of his dad’s care now that Markus was busy with messiah business showed the newcomer in; Elijah Kamski waltzed into the room, fashionably late.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Gavin snarled immediately from his seat

“Why, I wouldn’t miss this for the world, cousin” Kamski said conversationally, casually taking a seat like he owned the place 

“You even put pants on, you shouldn’t have bothered” Gavin barked sardonically

“You are related to Elijah Kamski?!” Leo blurted out

“You didn’t know?” Ian asked with interest 

“I– Umm –“ Leo froze

“Why would I tell anyone, especially someone I’m – that is – or whatever, is not like I’m proud of it!” Gavin spluttered but not without baring his teeth, “Shouldn’t you be shut in with your dolls? Your fucking things had a whole upraising, people fucking died and everything, and you didn’t come down for that”

Kamski shrugged lightly “Artificial Intelligence gaining sentience was always a possibility and I looked upon it with interest, my little cousin getting married, however? That I had to see happening with my own eyes to believe it, I haven’t gotten an invitation, by the way”

“We were born the same year, Elijah” Gavin barked “and you aren’t fucking invited”

“Seems we’ll be related yet, old friend” Kamski said agreeably, turning to Carl, waiving away Gavin’s outburst, which seemed unthinkable but nothing was impossible when you were Elijah Kamski, Leo guessed. 

“I think we already were in a way” Carl smiled

“That’s one of the bases we wanted to touch on” Ian interjected, as insufferably cheery as ever, completely impervious to the tension between the cousins “Elijah Kamski was the one that introduced Markus to you wasn’t it, Mr. Manfred –”

Leo thought ‘introduce’ was an awful stretch when Markus had been literally made to meet characteristics his dad would find enjoyable. Someone to play chess with him, someone to read for him, someone that would understand art, someone to play piano for him, all the things Leo wasn’t good enough to –

Gavin bumped his fist lightly against Leo’s knee, taking him out of his spiraling thoughts; Leo managed to answer him with a feeble smile before turning his attention back to the ongoing conversation 

“So in a way” The reporter was saying “Detective Reed marrying the younger Mr. Manfred closes the circle nicely, doesn’t it? Puts a nice bow to it, especially when Detective Reed was so close to it from the very start, who would have imagined”

“As if” Gavin murmured nastily

“What was that?” Ian asked

“Come on, cousin, let’s let bygones be bygones” Kamski said with a thin smile “I even brought you something” with a flourish he produced a small jewelry box out of his pocket, he opened it before placing it on the table.

“Oh! Isn’t that breathtaking” Ian said impressed taking a few pictures of it

The box contained an elegant silver ring with 3 delicately cut, strikingly red rubies embedded on it, looking very much like drops of blood… or red-ice… Leo looked away from it to Gavin, only to see Gavin glowering at Kamski like he had just caught the former Cyberlife CEO trying to poison one of his cats.

“This engagement ring has been in our family for generations,” Kamski explained “Gavin and I are the only two left now after our grandmother passed away a few years back, ‘You two are horrible people so it could as well go to the trash, I suppose’ grandmother said to us in her deathbed, but now here we are, all yours cousin, so you… what’s that old expression… put a ring on it”

“Fucking hell, Elijah” Gavin snarled “nobody wants that old ass moldy trash”

“That’s a curious way to refer to a family heirloom, cousin” Kamski said with a grin “and I can’t help but notice neither of you have one, so it seems I’m just in time”

“Oh! We could take some pictures” Ian said, excitedly

“The garden would be perfect, wouldn’t it” Kathy added, “Could we Mr. Manfred? If that’s also okay with you two, of course”

Everyone looked expectantly at them, and for the first time ever Leo wished Markus were in the room, nobody else could ever be the center of attention when Markus was around

“Fucking … whatever…” Gavin finally snapped, taking the ring out of the box, throwing the box at Elijah’s face and purposely striding on to the garden through the greenhouse windows “Get a move on, I don’t have all fucking night!”

Leo followed wishing they could talk about any of it, about damn Elijah Kamski who was just like yet another son his father would rather have than him, whatever, unlike Markus in whom Leo could clearly see all the qualities he was lacking, Kamski was actually kinda off-putting and weird, creepy, still better than Leo according to Carl Manfred, but it was no wonder Gavin wasn’t eager to publicize they were related, except now, because of the mess Leo had brought upon them, it was going to be all over everywhere.

When Leo reached Gavin they stood there looking at each other, in his father’s stupidly posh back garden, not the type of garden where you could have pets or stuff, for all the carefully manicured bushes Leo didn’t care for it, if he had a back garden he’d actually use it, have chickens and rabbits or something, and wait, what was he supposed to do now?

“I need your hand” Gavin said, sounding exasperated

Leo raised his right hand

“Your left hand, dumbass”

“Oh shit, right” Leo switched hands noticing he was shaking, he wanted to take it away but that wasn’t what you did when your boyfriend was giving you a fucking engagement ring, even if the ring had the general aura of a scorpion, and then Gavin was touching his hand and Leo wondered if he’d notice –

“Wait!” Ian said,

“What?!” Gavin barked, sounding that much closer to murder

“It’s a bit traditional but I think it goes with the surroundings” Kathy was saying

“We’d like to have a picture of one of you kneeling down” Ian added, both completely unfazed

“Oh, jeez” Leo sighed

“You are fucking kidding me” Gavin snapped

“Who proposed, son?” Carl interjected helpfully

“Oh! Yes, wonderful!” Ian said “That would make it more organic”

“Um, it wasn’t like –“ Leo started to mumble confusedly, he really sucked at this, they should have made up a story, but honestly who proposed? He would have never thought to make a story for that, he couldn’t imagine how someone like Gavin would propose, and Leo himself was sure he’d blurt it out at 4 am over cold sesame chicken wearing his old pajamas, no point in even trying to propose to someone who couldn’t say yes under those particular circumstances

“Fuckin–“ Gavin said and then he was suddenly down on one knee, looking up at him,

“Just snap the fucking picture,” Gavin growled “three… two… ”

They snapped it hurriedly before he could reach one, as soon as the flash went off Gavin was up again, holding Leo’s hand, sliding on the ugly red-ice ring, and Leo’s hand was doing a tingly thing and maybe if he could have a glass of water that would be nice

“It.. fits…” Leo said, having no idea of what else he could possibly say, Thank you? Cool? This thing is fuck ugly and I appreciate the sentiment but take it the fuck off? It didn’t seem like that would float with their current audience

“I had them fix it to your size, of course” Kamski said with a nod,

Leo shivered, not feeling like asking how come Kamski had even known his ring size or whatever, fucking creepy.

“Now, maybe a kiss?” Ian suggested

“Uhm –” Leo faltered and heard Gavin strangle a growl of discomfort

They looked at each other again, Gavin was still holding Leo’s hand and Leo’s face felt a bit too warm, if he was blushing he was going to fucking kick his own ass, it was just jackass Gavin, nothing to fucking blush about.

Gavin shifted closer, Leo held his breath; the sprinklers came on, spraying cold water all over the place.

“Oh, Dear” his dad exclaimed in surprise “I forgot about those, they are on a timer”

“Allow me, Carl” Kamski said helping his dad with his chair and into the house

“Get the camera, Ian!” Kathy shouted

“I got it!”

Leo and Gavin stared at each other for a moment, Leo tried not to be distracted by the way in which the water dripped down Gavin’s face making him look like the hero in some stupid lame period drama, or by how close they were to each other, so close Leo could see Gavin’s eyes were actually grey, he’d never paid attention to that before.

“Let’s scram” Leo hoped he said

Gavin didn’t have to be told so twice, they raced to the entrance; Leo slipped in the foyer, nearly making the bird’s cage fall, he scrambled confusedly on all fours and without any dignity as he exited the house, so all in all, a very average visit to the Manfred Manor.

+

“What the fuck was that?” Gavin said, but not before they were driving and at least five blocks away

“I know, right?” Leo agreed “They said a quiet thing, just talking!”

“Jesus Fuck!”

“I – I didn’t know Kamski was going to be there” Leo sounded apologetic

“Of course you didn’t, how the hell would you know? That’s just like that fucking creep”

Leo sneezed “Like how come my dad and Kamski are even friends? Like what’s up with that”

“Full offence, your father is obviously a creep too” Gavin argued back “That chair and that he’s so fucking old his bones are turning to dust as we speak are the only things stopping him from getting his full creep on”

“No way, he is a snob but he isn’t –“ Leo sneezed 

“Have you ever looked around that fucking house, he has dolls hanging from the ceiling, and aren’t those things he loves so much like dolls, I mean, fuck, isn’t that like having babies hanging from the ceiling from the point of view of the plastic pricks that go in and out of his house like –”

“Of course it isn’t… I mean… maybe… I’ll ask Simon if that’s creepy”

“He’s got fucking skulls by the window!”

“Those aren’t real!”

Gavin huffed “I have seen real skulls, and I’m not one percent sure those ain’t”

Leo answered by sneezing again 

“Phck!” Gavin pulled over at the side of the bridge, got down from the car, took his gym bag out of the trunk and threw it to Leo through the window “Fucking change out of those wet clothes”

“Ew, are these your dirty gym clothes?”

“They are still good for one more use at least, and they are dry” Gavin said “Last thing I need is you catching your fucking death from pneumonia or some shit, I’m not moping around playing the widower by myself” 

Leo opened the bag gingerly, took a sweatshirt out and sniffed at it cautiously

“gross…” Leo said half-heartedly

“Just get out of the damn wet clothes” Gavin said, walking away from the car

He walked up to the bridge’s railing, lit up a cigarette, the street lights reflected in the asphalt and it was late enough that they were the only two people around, thank fuck. A few minutes later Leo climbed out of the car dressed in Gavin’s dirty sweats, his hair a wet mess, even that was a much better look on him than when he was trying to be someone his creep of a father would like

“Can I have one?” Leo asked as he joined him

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?!” Leo asked with a grin “After all the shit we just went through?”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Duh, yours, obviously!”

Gavin rolled his eyes, puffed out a cloud of smoke and put out his cigarette “I have seen what that red-ice crap does to people’s insides. You have enough shit going on inside there as is” And that reminded him “I need that fucking ring back”

“Oh, sure! sorry!”

Leo hurried to take it off and handed it over; it was a stupid, ugly ring, it put Gavin in mind of slasher movies for some reason; the startling red shine of the red stones made it look almost as if Leo had cut his finger quite badly.

Gavin turned the ring over in his fingers a few times, this wasn’t at all the engagement ring he’d give Leo, what kind of psychopath would give a former red-ice addict a ring that looked so much like that crap – not that he’d ever have a fucking reason to even think of what type of ring would suit the fool or whathefuckever!

Gavin pulled his arm back and threw the ring into the river, as far and with as much strength as he could

“What the fuck are you doing?” Leo said, nearly laughing

“What? Did you want it?”

“Wasn’t it your great-great-great grandma’s or something” Leo argued “We could have paid for like three fake weddings with it!”

“I’m not risking it, that fucking thing gotta be cursed”

“How do you figure?” Leo laughed

“The last person who got engaged with it spawned Elijah Kamski” Gavin explained drily “We are in deep shit as is”

“At least we are in deep shit together,” Leo said bumping his shoulder against Gavin’s “right?”

Gavin didn’t reply but he bumped his shoulder back against Leo’s before walking back to the car, Leo close behind. Sure, if he had to endure Elijah’s shit at the same time that he had to pretend he was whipped over someone stupid enough to say yes when Gavin Reed proposed to them, it could as well be Leo.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Rat murder . . .

The door to the detective’s apartment opened, and Cricket chirped her welcomes not only to Gavin and Leo but also to her younger sisters who’d been out all the evening. The men put the carriers on the floor and Max and Rex came out, a little bit ruffled but pleased and happy to be home after their eventful day, while Gavin and Leo crashed on the couch, not nearly as satisfied with themselves or the world as the cats were

“Maybe, maybe it isn’t too late to, I don’t know, fake our deaths or something” Leo said, his eyes closed, letting himself sink into the couch

“Fucking shit, I feel like killing myself”

“That’s just how being a Manfred feels like” Leo groaned

They had set early in the morning to meet Hana, the Wedding Planner, a motherfucking Wedding Planner who had booked them for viewings everywhere as “The Manfreds” (this was sponsored by his dad, so, of course) and tag-along Ian who almost ignored them in favor of drooling over the extravagant venues they were being shown which, Leo thought, was just fine by him, he’d feared awkward questions he didn’t have answers for, but Ian was much more interested in asking if the woodwork was original, and what auction house and/or antique dealer had provided this or that horrendous statue or freaking hideous painting. 

For hours that seemed to last weeks, they were walked into elegant ball rooms, some with frescoes on the ceiling, or real marble floors, others with big glimmering mirrors around the walls, all of which Leo could only stare at in revolted horror as the Wedding Planner and the concierge of whichever overrated shithole they were touring ranted to each other on and on about contracts, and catering, and vendors, and parking and lighting and deposits and bubbles (bubbles?) being a no-no because they were a slipping hazard and a milliard other things that went right over his head.

This feeling was not particularly new when faced with his dad’s acquaintances, and at least he had the comfort of looking at Gavin, who glanced at all these things and people that made Leo feel nervous and uncertain with tired but unwavering contempt

“So, thoughts?” Hana asked after the sixth venue tour just as she had five times before

“Uhm..” Leo found himself completely out of more or less polite ways to say ‘I hate this shit’, Gavin huffed irritably 

“Maybe you’d like to dance around a bit?” Hana suggested “Some couples like to take it for a spin, get the feel of the place”

Leo spared a quick look at Gavin, and nope _that_ was not happening

“No… I don’t think so…” Leo didn’t even dare imagine what it would be like to have Gavin’s arms around him or what –

“—Am I right?” Hana was saying and now Leo had missed it

“What?”

“You are Carl Manfred’s son, am I right?” Hana gave Leo a funny look “I didn’t get it wrong?”

“I am…”

“Because Carl would love every single one of the ballrooms I have showed you –“

“I can’t believe you got some of these viewings” Ian added still mesmerized by the marble floors “and with such short notice too!”

“But the geezer isn’t the one getting hitched, is he?” Gavin snapped drily “just pick one dumbass, I’m fucking sick of this shit!”

“Do you really, really want me to pick between the stuffy Italian cathedral theatre or the fucking prissy balls cult temple with the weird hang up on bubbles, which one Gavin? Which one?!”

“I don’t give a fuck, just be done with it!” Gavin turned around and stalked out of the ballroom, every single one of his steps echoing loudly off the walls

“As you can see this room has great acoustics” Hana pointed out

“It would be wonderful for a string quartet!” Ian added with genuine excitement, at least the viewings weren’t completely wasted

“Okay…” Leo said, 

“I’m guessing you are the one who wants to have a wedding?” Hana asked sympathetically, used to, now and then, having the less enthusiastic half of any given pair she was working with having a fit. In most cases it augured no good to the future of the marriage but that was not for her to worry about.

“I mean… I guess… I am… the one who got us into this?”

“If the bubble prohibition is a deal breaker, I can see what I can do.” Hana said efficiently “How do you feel about sparklers?”

“Don’t go for either,” Ian recommended “It’s tacky”

“That doesn’t matter!” Hana reprimanded “He can have whatever he wants, it’s his wedding day… to…” She trailed off gesturing vaguely to where Gavin had disappeared

Ian opened his mouth as if to argue the point, considered it for a moment and then said “Hana, you must get this man his bubbles”

“Uhm.. that’s okay, listen…” Leo stammered “…I have to check on, you know –”

“Of course! we’ll meet with you two at the next venue after lunch”

That was Leo’s cue to get the fuck out of there, pursued by Ian’s voice

“It’s never too late to call it off!” Ian called after him,

“I’m starting to feel sorry for that guy,” Ian’s voice could still be heard when Leo was all the way across the room, it really did have awesome acoustics “If this is the honeymoon I don’t want to imagine what’s next… but anyway, do you think we could see the veranda?”

Once Leo was outside, it was not hard to find Gavin having a smoke next to his car.

“What the fuck, man! Don’t leave me alone with those fuckos!” Leo complained “Jeez, I have never seen you smoke this much”

“Well, I have never been this fucking stressed” Gavin put out his half smoked cigarette “I have had homicide cases less stressful than this crap”

“We have time to go to lunch or something,” Leo shrugged “have a bit of a breather, before the next one”

“Don’t you have something else to do?”

“Not really…” Leo felt suddenly deflated; of course Gavin would want him to go away, after being forced to spend so much time togeth –

“My cats, dumbass!”

“Oh, shit! Right, their shots!” Leo stammered “Fuck, I wouldn’t have forgotten, I promise, but with all of this, anyway, I’ll do it now” Leo twirled in place, lost for a second, feeling his pockets for the keys of his car, which was parked… back at his apartment building “Can I borrow your car?”

“Just get in” Gavin said rolling his eyes and taking the driver’s seat

+

Gavin drove them to his apartment where they picked up the two cats, and then they used their hours of now rare freedom eating bending machine chips as they waited in the veterinary clinic. Gavin didn’t particularly want to do this, he wasn’t about to lie, the truth wasn’t fucking good either, but as things were going it couldn’t not be fucking done, fuck, fuck, fuck

“You okay there?” Leo asked

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?

“You look, I don’t know… nervous? It’s only a routine shot right, they’ll be okay”

Gavin scoffed, “I’m not nervous” he spat, crossed his arms over his chest and reclined on his seat. It wasn’t the cats he was thinking of.

They were eventually shown into a consulting room Gavin had been in at least a thousand times before. Leo carried Max, the big grey cat sniffing around curiously, while Gavin took on Rex, the smaller tortoiseshell already hissing indignantly, remembering exactly what the cat carrier and all the funky smells meant and not liking it one bit.

“The Reed Ladies!” Maud said greeting and petting the cats, the vet tech was an older woman wearing deep purple lipstick, her grey hair up in an artful disarray of curls, she looked like a fluffy, stylish bat that was particularly fond of hair curlers “and I see you have brought Gavin with you!”

“Hey, Maud” Gavin said with a little quirk of his mouth “This is Leo, he’ll be bringing the inmates in sometimes”

“I saw!” Maud gave a little excited jump, Gavin had feared as much “It’s lovely to finally meet you, just like him to wait until the very last second” she said with playful reproach “I have heard so much about you!”

“Oh!... uhm, okay” Leo said, finding himself being suddenly pulled into a hug.

“But he’s never talked about me has he?” Maud continued holding Leo at arm’s length, and inspecting him in a fond way, with a smile and a twinkle in her eye Gavin couldn’t quite place

“Err…”

“No, he wouldn’t, too dangerous; I’m the keeper of embarrassing middle school pictures” Maud smiled and cupped Leo’s face “You have such a good face; he’s got a really good face, Gavin!”

“Can we get on with it?” Gavin replied irritably, “Please?” Anything to get this thing over with, he had no opinions on Leo’s face, beyond it being the face of a chronic idiot

“Oh yes, the ladies!” Maud said letting go of Leo “Let’s do Max first she’s always easier”

Leo held on to Max as Maud administered her shot, when it came to Rex’s turn, Gavin didn’t need directions and was thankful for something he could do with his hands, he walked up to the cabinets with complete familiarity, took a towel out of them and wrapped Rex in it.

“Still excellent purrito technique” Maud complimented him with a nod “He used to work here when he was in school, our Gavin” she said casually as she prepared the second syringe

“Really?”

“Oh, phck!” Gavin mumbled

“I know it’s unbelievable but he was so very helpful, even if we did have to keep him mostly in the animal ward because of the attitude and the language, but fortunately cats and dogs can’t repeat it, although we did have that parrot that one time” she laughed, only pausing for a moment to give Rex her shot “That’s all, Rex, not too bad now, was it?”

Rex hissed and bristled in furious disagreement and very colorful language

“More like you every day!” Maud said to Gavin

“That’s it for today, Maud” Gavin replied hurrying to gather his cats, so much so he didn’t even unpurrito Rex before putting her back in her carrier, she could deal with that on her own

“You have to come back soon,” Maud said looping her arm though Leo’s, talking over Gavin as the three of them walked into the waiting room “I’ll dig up some great pictures for you!”

“I’ll bring you Cricket in two weeks for her check up” Gavin’s voice overlapped hers a bit too loudly

“Try to come alone” Maud kept saying to Leo in an exaggerated stage whisper “We’ll have more fun without him hovering”

“I totally will!” Leo replied with a lopsided grin

“Later, Maud.” Gavin said bluntly, grabbing Leo by the sleeve of his jacket, and herding him outside and into the car.

“Dude, she knows you!” Leo said still grinning obnoxiously “She likes you!”

“She’s fucking senile”

“How come she wasn’t on the list?”

“What list?” Gavin feigned ignorance as he started the car

“Duh, your wedding invite list, Mr. I don’t have friends outside of work”

“Unlike some dumbasses, I don’t make a hobby out of lying to the elderly”

“But she’s a list person, right?” Leo thought for a moment “I mean if this were, like, for real”

“Sure, if it were for real and not a fucking festering pile of lies”

“Dope!... Wait, is she your non-work friend?”

“She’s not a friend,” Gavin scoffed “She’s family, fucking keep up”

“Right!” Leo replied with a grin “Super Dope!”

Gavin sighed, it was the deep, heavy sigh of a long suffering soul in purgatory. The worst part of the day (arguably) was yet to come.

+

“Fuck no”

“Just looking at it makes me fucking exhausted”

They stared at the sight in front of them for a few seconds, the big gate, the sprawling property, the ivy and rose bushes covering the gothic building at the center of all of it.

“Get a move on, the sooner we do this shit, the sooner it will be over” Gavin glanced at the cats still in their carriers in the back seat “Help me put the inmates in their leashes”

“Are you serious?” Leo asked with an amused laugh “we are taking them in with us?”

“I’m not going to leave them alone in the fucking car. With any luck they’ll turn us away, no pets allowed or whatever”

Leo scoffed “You wish! We are under my dad’s name; rich people are allowed to take their pets where hicks like us can’t enter”

“Yeah, because you are a regular hillbilly”

“I am to people like this, are you kidding me,” Leo said bumping casually against Gavin “Do they really walk with their leashes?”

“Nah, these fuckers just flop on their side when they are wearing them”

“Ugh, I know exactly how you feel, dude!” Leo said to the cat as he picked her up from the ground

Leo was absolutely right; the concierge may have shown a look of distaste for barely a second as she registered the two unannounced fur balls in her costumers’ arms, before remembering how much money there was behind the Manfred name. If the Manfred couple wanted to take their cats on the tour with them, there was no harm in it, the important thing was to bag them.

“You brought guests!” Hana said, with the air of someone who’s seen far weirder things

“Are they going to be the ring bearers?” Ian added “Because that would be adorable!” he snapped a picture. He sniffled

They were shown inside; this location was much darker than the previous ones, lots of woodwork all around the walls, a big sparkling chandelier hanging from the ceiling, furnishings out of a gothic novel, big tapestries; their feet sank in the plush carpet as they walked around.

“The getting ready rooms are on the second floor” the concierge explained “and despite the look of the place, you are not to worry we have more than enough electric outlets –”

Her smooth explanation was interrupted by Ian’s breathing which seemed much louder and labored than what their leisure walk around the house would account for

“Man, are you okay?” Leo asked as Max who so far had been comfortably relaxed in Leo’s arms started to cackle, ekekekekee

“I am, It’s just, my eyes are getting so watery” Ian said launching into a coughing fit

Which Gavin ignored in favor of saying “You have rats” it was not a question

“Of course we haven’t!” the concierge said, offended

“Oh, you definitely have rats, lady”

As if this were her cue Max jumped out of Leo’s arms, rushing under a big china cabinet making the trinkets inside it vibrate precariously seconds after which two big rats came out of under it, followed closely by the cat. 

“You were supposed to hold her, dumbass!” Gavin said to Leo “That’s what the leash is for!”

“I didn’t want to hurt her!”

“Phck” Gavin handed Rex to Leo, knowing it was not the best idea, she was unpredictable, but then again there wasn’t anyone else in the damned place he’d trust with her. Gavin went after Max. While Ian was still trying to regain his breath, he sat in the nearest chair he could find, nose and eyes watering, throat by even the most amateurish guess, closing

Leo looked at the cat in his arms and then at Ian

“Ian, are you allergic to cats?” Leo asked

“I don’t know,” Ian wheezed alarmingly “never been… near one… not an… animal person”

“Whatever it is, I’m calling an ambulance” Hana said, dialing in her phone at which point Rex, fueled by her sister’s general excitement and her residual anger about the rabies shot, and last but not least her closeness to a tapestry decided to climb it, and so she did, sinking her nails in Leo’s shoulder to impulse herself, from Leo’s shoulder to Hana’s arm, making her drop her cell phone which slid under one of those heavy, unmoving, rat condo cabinets.

Rex went up, up, up the wall, and then she jumped on to the chandelier, making it swing wildly from side to side, the crystal beads clicking against each other, at which moment she decided, no, this was actually not the stuff, everything was going round and round too fast for her tastes, and getting down? On her own? Preposterous. Rex started wailing for help in tones akin to those of a banshee heralding rat deaths.

“Hello?” Hana was down on the floor, trying uselessly to reach for her phone, but she was almost sure the call had gone through ”Hello? We need an ambulance!” she shouted trying to be louder than Rex’s constant shrieks

_“Ma’am? Ma’am, are those screams? ma’am, I’m sending the police and the paramedics, ma’am, can you hear me?”_

“Shit” Leo said, taking in Ian’s now soft blue tint “Shouldn’t we take him outside? You know, like, fresh air without cat hair or whatever”

“Yes, good idea,” Hana said getting up, giving up on the phone her arms couldn’t reach “let’s go”

“No!” Ian pushed them away “If I’m to die… I’ll do it… sprawled… in this… 18 century original… chaise longue”

“You aren’t freaking dying, man!” Leo hoped, he spared a glance at Gavin barking at the other side of the room

“Stay the fuck back, lady!”

“This is a 13 Million rug” the concierge said, brandishing a broom she had materialized out of nowhere, what she expected to do with it, a mystery, but if she thought she was going to whack Gavin’s cat with it, she was clearly demented

“What?!” Gavin snapped “Who the fuck spends so much on a fucking carpet, might as well piss on that money”

“Oh my god!” the concierge face drained of blood as Max eviscerated the now unconscious rat, it’s small rodent heart still beating as it bounced in the plush carpet with the rest of the rat’s assorted vital organs, not happy with only one victim, Max immediately sprung for the second, with which she proceeded to **[REDACTED]**

The concierge ran out of the room, and past Lieutenant Hank Anderson as she crossed the door, with remarkable speed for someone in heels

Connor took in the scene, blood and viscera (animal origin) on the invaluable Persian carpet, Gavin Reed standing over it, rat intestines on his boots (not the first time Connor had seen that) a 4 year old cat, female, yowling loudly in the still swinging chandelier, reasons unknown, while a second one, 6 years old, also female, exercised an action last seen by Jack the Ripper victims on a third rat. Leo Manfred and Hana Farheen both trying, unsuccessfully, to pry Ian Sturgeon off a chaise longue, the last one’s breathing was compromised due to a severe allergic reaction.

Connor gave the all clear to the paramedic team waiting outside.

“There’s nothing to see here Anderson” Gavin snapped, catching the Lieutenant’s eye

“I’d say…”

“This is a 13 Million rug” Connor informed

“Fucking hell!” Hank exclaimed

“It’s red” Gavin defended himself, Max now secure in his arms licking her muzzle, delighted with her handywork “You can barely see the blood”

A ladder was fetched to reach Rex, Gavin prepared to go up on it giving Max to Leo, and taking off his jacket, reaching the cat, making another purrito out of her despite the wiggling (Rex now, refusing to be subjected to the indignities of a rescue). Ian was taken out in a stretcher. He gave them a thumbs up as he passed by.

They had finally been let go, after the Concierge had returned and screamed at them, not only for all that had transpired, but also because Gavin had gone up in that ladder, which was apparently an unforgivable liability for the premises. Leo felt in high school again, Mr. Manfred, the actual Mr. Manfred was going to hear about this. E-mails would be sent. Calls would be made. If she had her way, a lawsuit would be on its way for property damages.

Leo guessed they could cross this place out of the list.

After that Gavin drove them in complete exhausted silence to his apartment, where they now lay in complete exhausted silence thrown over Gavin’s couch like boneless rag dolls. 

“I should be leaving” Leo said, but didn’t move

“I’m not driving you home, I’m beat” Gavin replied

“I’ll just take the bus” Leo said, finally making an actual attempt to stand up

“It’s fucking late,” and then because exhaustion apparently made him delirious “just stay, dumbass”

“Seriously?”

“Why the fuck not? T sleeps over all the time”

“Alright!” Leo said, and Gavin, even through his eyes were closed could hear the idiot’s obnoxious grin

“Fine, you take the bedroom, I’m not moving from here.” Gavin kicked Leo’s legs “Go, get off, I need fucking space”

“Fine, fine” Leo got up with some effort and opened the walk in closet walking into a bucket with cleaning supplies, then on his second try (after battling Max for a fugitive sponge) discovered the actual door to the bedroom “Dude, your bed is freaking huge, awesome!”

“You better close the door or the cats will go sleep with you.” Gavin warned

“I don’t mind that, I’ll leave it open” Leo replied, his voice muffled, obviously he had already fallen face first on the bed

“Your problem, don’t fucking complain if Max goes breathe her stinky rat breath on you!”

There was no further argument to that which could only mean Leo had passed out.

In the morning Gavin went on with his routine as usual, not being particularly quiet when he entered his room to shower and dress for work, however, and he should have expected it, nothing seemed to disturb the fool’s slumbers. Leo drooled on peacefully, Max snoring near his head, Rex cuddled to his chest.

Gavin may have gazed at the drooling idiot in his bed, he may have. Maybe he even thought for exactly one second what if all of it wasn’t a rotting pile of lies, what if, but there was no evidence of it, nobody could ever prove it, except for Cricket who surveyed the scene from her preferred sunbathing place by the window. The old calico slow blinked at him; she always kept his secrets.

His phone pinged just then, and Leo opened his eyes. Now, that was what woke him, must be the same alert sound that beeped on the dumbass’ phone when takeout was at the door.

“Fuck,” Gavin said, reading Tina’s ominous text message

“What is it?” Leo said, sleep-rumpled, half opening his eyes,

“That fucking prick we almost killed is at the station,”

“Is he pressing charges?”

“Worse” Gavin said, showing Leo his phone

“Damn, those are too many exclamation marks,” Leo said, trying to focus his eyes on the text “Even for Tina”

“She’s having too much fun with all this crap”

“Who else knows it isn’t like… a real thing”

“Just her, it’s not something I want to fucking publish”

“And Ian is there, right now? Interviewing people? About, like… us?”

Leo did the only thing he could do. He groaned and curled back in bed cocooning himself with the comforter while Gavin, groaning in a lower key but with exactly the same amount of rightful anguish, left for work.

+

**INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER CHRIS MILLER AT THE DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT**

“Where you surprised when you heard of Detective Reed’s Engagement?”

“Not at all!”

“No?” Kathy prods “Not even a bit, did you know they were dating?”

“I didn’t, but Reed is not… the communicative type”

“But you still weren’t surprised about the engagement”

“Well, it’s Leo, so it makes sense”

“How so?”

“Reed is not… a people person”

“Oh, we have noticed that”

“Yeah, but he and Leo hang out all the time, Reed always texts him when we go out for drinks and stuff like that, not always to invite him out with us, sometimes he just texts with him if he’s feed up of the people at the bar. Plus, Leo drops by very often to see Reed at break. Reed usually has lunch at that ugly coffee shop at the corner, so not many people see them, but I like their coffee too, so, anyway, I always thought that was quite sweet. Reed is not the type to like to chit chat over his coffee, so” The officer shrugs “it doesn’t take that much to guess there must be something there. Is that a bad answer, you seem disappointed?”

“Oh no! There are no bad answers! It’s only Mr. Kamski made a comment about –“

Officer Miller Frowns

“Kamski? Elijah Kamski? That Kamski?”

“Elijah Kamski is Detective Reed’s cousin and closer family relation”

“No way!, Are you serious right now?”

“Yes, very much so”

Officer Miller crosses his arms and leans back on his seat

“Well… now I am surprised… Darn…”

**INTERVIEW WITH DETECTIVE NINES ANDERSON AT THE DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT**

“As Detective Reed’s partner you must have been privy to even the very early stages of the romance” Ian starts

“Regrettably.”

A heavy silence falls over the break room where the interview is taking place

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“Dilated pupils, an increase in heart rate and in the secretion of foul bodily fluids such as sweat, these are all signs of a human that has found a desirable mate, all of which both Detective Reed and Leo Manfred display when they are in near proximity to one another, and all of which are quite easy to read with my inbuilt abilities”

“Androids can do that?”

“It’s a feature only seen in the RK line,”

“Oh, that’s –”

“If I could opt out of seeing it, I would”

“T– There’s been quite a lot of controversy around Detective Reed and Android Affairs, you have been working with Detective Reed for around two years now, is there anything you’d like to comment on that?”

“Detective Reed is Adequate for the tasks we have been entrusted with, I have told this to Jericho liaisons many a time but Markus has other ideas and so we have not been approved as of yet”

“but Detective Reed is…”

“Adequate.”

“Maybe Markus will reconsider now that Detective Reed is going to be part of his family”

“That’s doubtful”

“It doesn’t seem like you care for Markus much”

“I would have thought that rather obvious”

“W – What about Leo Manfred, do you have any thoughts on him?”

“He seems to have alarming self destructive tendencies”

“How so? Is this about the red –”

“He’s choosing Detective Reed as a romantic partner”

“Oh, yes–”

“I would think that’s enough proof of it”

“A– Anything else?”

The Android’s Led flashes yellow for the first time

“I find him irritating yet curiously endearing like an aggravating Pekingese, Some may feel like kicking him when he’s yapping at their ankles, but personally I couldn’t, the wretched creature has enough problems as is with his bad breathing, several other congenital defects, and now having Detective Reed as his soon to be spouse”

“I see…”

“Some humans seem to be resolutely bent on their own destruction”

Detective Nines Anderson Concludes

**INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER TINA CHEN AT THE DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT**

“Wow, you are like, SO pretty” Tina Chen says in awe making Kathy giggle “Sorry, I guess you hear that all the time” The officer adds

“Not at all, thank you!” Kathy says, “Although, it’s always a bit awkward, I was just created like this, so it doesn’t have any merit”

“I guess that’s true for humans as well”

The interviewer laughs again

“Ready for the interview?”

“Yes! All ready, Leo and Gavin, Gavin and Leo, Oh! Gleo! wouldn’t that be a nice couple name if we were in like the early 2000’s” Tina exclaims “in which we aren’t so forget I said something that dumb, and wasn’t that the name of an old TV show”

“I think that was Glee” Kathy said

“Oh, yeah! Nana used to watch that! It was quite awful wasn’t it”

“You have known Detective Reed for a long time haven’t you?”

“Since we were in middle school”

“So you probably knew about this all along”

“I think it’s safe to say I know all the details of how this all came to be, yes”

“And you also know Elijah Kamski is Detective Reed’s cousin”

“Sure, I know about Elijah” the officer confirms with a light shrug

“Because I really fulminated Officer Miller with that one”

“Oh, Gavin won’t like that’s in the open, he’s not very enthusiastic about the entire Elijah business at the best of times”

“Why is that?”

“I really rather not get into that, I don’t think even I know, to be honest, and this is about the wedding that is happening very soon, who cares about Elijah”

“Well, Mr. Kamski said something about how we really should dig up stuff at the station because he didn’t believe his cousin could be actually engaged”

Tina Chen puffs indignantly “What would he know?! They last saw each other when their grandmother passed away and that was years ago, or at least it was before that ring business”

“I thought that was rather sweet of him”

“Sure, like an angler fish is all sweet and cuddly.” The officer puffs again “They are really getting married and I know it’s not the easiest thing to believe when it comes to Gavin, but those are the – Oh my god – Gavin Reed is getting married before me?! My mother is never going to let me hear the end of it, could you excuse me for a minute? I have to call home, damage control”

The officer excuses herself as she talks into her phone

“Mama? Have you been watching the news by any chance?”

**INTERVIEW WITH LIEUTENANT HANK ANDERSON AND DETECTIVE CONNOR ANDERSON AT THE DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT**

“We meet again!”

“Are you doing better?” Connor asks politely

“Yes! all good, I got an EpiPen now, just in case” Ian shows it cheerfully “if the cats are going to be the ring bearers, still adorable by the way, I’ll be ready for it, I just have to stab myself with one of these, Kathy has another one with her in case I pass out”

“Great”

“Let’s get it over with then” The lieutenant says in a resigned huff “What’s with all this shindig about again?”

“Well, Detective Reed has been making himself notorious for his loud opinions on android affairs over the last two years”

“Yeah, he’s good at that”

“And now he’s marrying Markus’ brother, what are your thoughts on that?”

Detective Anderson and Lieutenant Anderson look at each other for a moment, then the Lieutenant shrugs,

“I’m happy for the kid”

“Are there no qualms about a member of the department marrying someone with a criminal record?”

The Lieutenant frowns “The Manfred kid is not a dangerous criminal, he’s off that red-ice stuff, still rowdy enough tho, but that’ll be good for Reed, keep him on his toes” the Lieutenant let’s out a gruffy laugh

“Leo Manfred has only been processed for a number of misdemeanors, not felonies” Detective Connor Anderson adds “Moreover, I do believe Detective Reed has displayed less antisocial behavior since he started to both work with Nines and keeping the company of Leo Manfred”

“Has he, really?” The interviewer asks with skepticism

“I believe so, yes” The Detective affirms “His insults seem to be of a more general nature”

“It’s damn hard to tell but, yeah, I can see it too” The Lieutenant adds “Those two are a good match, Reed keeps Manfred out of trouble, and Manfred keeps Reed from checking out. So, what does it matter who they are related to, that’s worthless bullshit…” At this point the Lieutenant leans forward in a conspiratorial way “Miller was saying Reed is related to that creepy prick –”

“– to Elijah Kamski” The Detective speaks over the Lieutenant

“Is that right?” The Lieutenant adds, his bushy eyebrows questioning

“Yes, that’s correct”

“Bloody hell,” The Lieutenant scowls, as if in deep thought for a moment “I want to go on record saying the Manfred kid is the one getting the short straw out of this whole thing then”

“I have to agree with the Lieutenant” Detective Connor Anderson says with quiet conviction


	4. Chapter 4

The interviews were aired two days later, it was a morning show for people to have something innocuous to digest with their breakfast, Gavin’s blood ran cold hearing the words of his coworkers and the only close friends he had; his only comfort being that Leo would never be awake early enough to watch it. As soon as Gavin arrived at the station he bee lined for Tina luckily finding her alone in the break room.

“Good Morning! Did you watch the show?” Tina asked chirpily “I think I was quite convincing, if I say so myself”

“Sure, you were great, but what the fuck!” Gavin said in a rough low whisper “I thought you hadn’t fucking told anyone else”

Tina scoffed “Who are you talking to? I wouldn’t give away your schemes”

“They are not my schemes” Gavin argued “And if nobody else is in on it what the fuck was all that fucking nonsense about!”

Tina shrugged “You two are very convincing, everyone is sold on it. If you hadn’t told me I might have believed it myself, except that it would be near impossible for Leo to keep something like that in the dark…” She thought for a second “but even then it wouldn’t be unbelievable”

“What the fuck are you getting to, Chen?”

“Oh, Come on, Reed! I don’t need Nine’s funky x-ray vision to see –“ Tina stopped abruptly and stared at him for a moment “How can you really have no idea? You absolute screwball!” she said poking him in the ribs

“Reed, got a minute?” Lieutenant Anderson said gruffly into the break room

“Yeah!” Gavin barked back

“We’ll talk later” Tina said

“Sure we will” Gavin rolled his eyes as she happily patted his arm

“Chin up, Detective!” she added airily

Gavin followed the Lieutenant who signaled for him to take a seat at his desk, just in front of Connor’s

“We need your help with a case” the Lieutenant said evenly,

“Of course you do,” Gavin couldn’t help a condescending smirk “can’t keep up with the work anymore old man?”

If Connor or the Lieutenant were ever bothered by any of his comments they didn’t show it, Gavin had to admit they weren’t good sport but that never stopped him from trying to get a raise out of them. This time like so many before it they only looked at each other, with that annoying silent understanding they loved to rub in everyone’s face and then Connor said

“We need some data from Mr. Kamski”

“Fuck, no!” Gavin growled immediately, the condescending smirk washing off his face fast enough

“He said he’d give it to us as long as you and Leo Manfred went to retrieve it” Connor continued

“Hard fucking luck then,” Gavin spat back “Go do some actual work”

“Reed –“ The Lieutenant started

“What? Are you really going to humor that prick, Anderson?”

“I have seen his games first hand,” the Lieutenant said “wouldn’t ask but –”

“We have exhausted every other possibility” Connor added

“That prick keeps his information close,” The Lieutenant continued “it’s damn hard to pry it out of his clammy hands“

“Detective” Nines interjected, materializing out of nowhere

“Fucking shit, Nines!”

“You really need to be more aware of your surroundings” Nines said calmly “I have been standing behind you for the duration of this conversation”

“Whatever,” Gavin muttered “fucking blowhard”

“It would beneficial for us to cooperate with Connor and the Lieutenant.” Nines continued “I’m sure they would put a good word for us with the Captain if we offered our assistance freely on this case, is that not so, Connor”

“We’d be glad to do so” Connor affirmed

“You haven’t fucking done it?” Gavin said “It’s been two damn years!”

“You haven’t given us a reason to” Connor said simply

“Quite the contrary I would say” Nines added

“Phckin’ –” Gavin spat sulkily, feeling backed up against a wall “does Leo have to go?”

“That’s what that prick is hustling for” The Lieutenant replied

“Shit, fine, I’ll call him later” The other three stared at him “I’m not trying to either wake up that fool, or trying to explain anything to him before noon, this doesn’t need to get any shittier”

“Fair enough, kid” The Lieutenant clapped his shoulder “Take Nines with you when it’s time to pick him up”

“Right…”

Of course fucking Elijah would worm his way into getting whatever he wanted, the fucking leech, Gavin had no patience for his games; he glared at his phone, for lack of a better victim, as if it were guilty of all his misfortunes and fumed.

+

Later that morning Leo waited nervously crosslegged on his couch as the little icon of the video messenger app bubbled on his tablet screen, he took a deep breath, no need to be anxious, these were his friends; they had seen him do enough stupid shit in his red-ice days that one more wouldn’t surprise them, it helped that back then they had been doing plenty of stupid shit themselves, the three of them had come a long way, but what hadn’t changed was that he could always trust them to have his back.

The first screen to come up was Jay’s, with his nose piercing and his undercuts framing his shock of dark auburn hair, he never left home if he could help it but he was always smartly dressed like he was ready to pop up for a drink at some gentleman’s club in the 1920’s. The second was Amber’s, looking much grainier, she had warned them renaissance faires weren’t big on great wi-fi services, she twirled before the camera for them to see her costume before she sat down, a flower crown around her head, her chestnut hair spilling around her, she had a pretty – or irritating, depending of whom you asked – habit of playing with it as she talked. Leo greeted them with a big smile, still unshowered and wearing his pajamas.

“Hey guys, Listen –“ Leo said 

“I’m so totally happy for you!” Amber interrupted him with a delighted squeak

“You could have told us you were dating the copper,” Jay said in mock reproach

“Hush, Jay!” Amber chided

“I’m just saying he could have,”

“How could he? We were two perfect witches about Gavin, like, all the time”

Jay sighed “True enough, and I mean it’s not like we couldn’t tell, so we forgive you”

“What – what do you mean?“ Leo said taken aback

“Oh, gorgeous! You aren’t that good at keeping secrets everything shows on your face,” Amber said drawlingly twirling a strand of her hair in her fingers “and you go on and on about him like every time we talk,”

“The way you look at him too,” Jay said with a teasing smirk

“No way!” Leo felt his face heating up, that had been happening way too often lately

“Sweetie, Your eyes totally go like woosh, stars everywhere, like he’s the most divine thing you’ve ever seen”

“And we know him, “ Jay said with a grimace “so, we know only love can make you look at that pig like that”

“Jay, darling, really!”

“Sorry, sorry” Jay said straightening up in his chair “I’m working on it; it will take me a while but I’ll get there”

“That ring though, tell me he wasn’t serious” Amber said with a pretty frown

“Ugh, yeah that can’t be for real, I mean” Jay lowered his voice to a whisper “It looked like red-ice, what the fuck, man!”

“Right!” Leo immediately forgot the main objective of this conversation in favor of going over the Manor events, he’d wanted to vent about them for days “… And then Gavin threw it into the river” Leo said gesticulating the throw

“That’s the least he could do” Amber said with the highest level of approval she’d ever had for Gavin in her voice as Jay nodded his own emphatically

“Exactly how creepy is Kamski in real life, though?” Jay asked

“So fucking creepy, he said he’d fixed the ring to my size, how the fuck does he even know that, what the fuck, dude”

“Eww!” Amber and Jay said in unison

“Right?!” 

“Who would have thought the copper is not the most messed up person in his family”

“I know!” Leo conceded “And wait till you hear–“

“Crap! boys, sorry I’m losing the stupid sig-“ Amber’s screen went black

“Nooo!”

“We lost her!”

_“Jay, can you help me with these?”_ a echoey voice said from somewhere in Jay’s apartment

“Oh! There in a minute!” Jay said in response “Sorry, Leo, gotta –”

“Go, go! I’ll call you two again”

“You better, I want more details” Jay said waving his goodbye “Love you!”

“Love you too!” Leo replied

“Oh! Yo, Leo!” Jay’s husband said coming into view with bags of groceries “Jay told me about you and that filthy –”

“Byee” Jay hurried to disconnect the call

Leo let himself flop backwards on his couch, that hadn’t gone as planned, just like him to get side tracked. But what the hell had been all that, he’d expected raised eyebrows, he’d expected ‘what the fuck is going on’s not immediate acceptance, what the fuck was that about?; sure he talked about Gavin… okay, maybe he did talk about him a bit too much, but it was because they hung out a lot and it was always lots of fun… God, he hoped he didn’t really look like ‘woosh’ at him, whatever that meant it sounded very embarrassing especially when he wasn’t aware of it;

Leo groaned, it was like the more this went on the more he believed his own lies, waking up in Gavin’s apartment two days back had been bad enough in that it hadn’t felt weird at all; it had taken him a second to realize Gavin had just gone to work and left him there, alone, in his apartment, and Leo had taken it in stride.

He’d showered and grabbed one of Gavin’s dumb v neck shirts, then he’d taken a poptart from the corner of the kitchen cabinet that must be Tina’s judging by the pink mug with white polka dots and the boxes of tea that were with it, which could only be hers since Leo had in more than one occasion heard Gavin say drinking leaf water was like drinking piss “They are the same fucking color! I’m not drinking that shit!” Leo said to himself in his best Gavin impression to which Cricket meowed her approval; Leo pet the cat and poured some cold coffee for himself instead, sat on the counter and bit into the equally cold poptart, looking at the other two cats sunbathe sleepily near the window, he was considering to follow their example and take an early morning nap when someone knocked at the door. 

Leo tiptoed quietly to it more out of habit than anything else and looked through the peephole, he opened the door with a smile.

Hana let out a sigh of relief “It’s you, great! I had two addresses and I didn’t know which was which so I was ready to – it doesn’t matter, I brought you something!” she said excitedly

“C – come in,” Leo said “this is Gavin’s place though”

“Oh! Let me write that down” Hana said taking her phone out and making notes “I tried to call you, and Mr. Reed too, but neither of you picked up so I decided to try the addresses, I don’t have too much time I’m completely booked, summer is the peak season for weddings, you know, but” she sighed “I do owe you an apology, it’s my job to get you the wedding you want, usually when I’m contacted by parents the tastes of their children are rather similar, or if not the parents give me an idea of what to go for”

“I guess my dad didn’t”

“But he did! He said this was going to be a big event with press and at least 200 guests”

“Jeez…” Leo didn’t like the sound of that at all

“I was a daft goose and just went with it, went for the Carl Manfred style,” she shook her head “but look at some of these, I think I did so much better on my second try”

They sat down, Max came down from her sunbath to inspect the newcomer, then sat next to Leo and pawed at the venues going by as Hana slid through pictures of new locations, sport bars, modified warehouses, industrial lofts, and what she thought as the grand finale, an austere cabin quietly nested amid tall trees, it looked if anything a bit run down and forgotten but the wooden steps went down into a wide dock that overlooked the lake, the thick woods at the banks closing protectively around it

“That’s fucking beautiful”

“Now, that’s the look I wanted to see!” Hana clapped her hands “You could have a bonfire, the place is not big, you’d only be able to have around 25 guests, 30 tops if you really want to push it, more house party, less political parade”

“Won’t you get in trouble, what about what my dad said”

Hana gave Leo a chummy look

“A wedding should be about the two people getting married and they shouldn’t give a hoot about what anyone else wants! look, here you’d have the lake, and you could send everyone home at the end of the night and rent the cabin for yourselves, but full disclosure: the owner is a bit of an old crank, the cabin is terribly dusty, there are spiders everywhere, and if it rains there will be leaks, and he said he wasn’t about to clean anything, or having careless cleaning crews around, “If the kids want the dust off they can come sweep it themselves” “ Hana mimicked “and there’s nothing remotely looking like something Ian would like to die on, you’d probably want to give your guests some bug spray too”

“That sounds really cool, actually” Leo laughed, giving bug spray as party favors did sound much more like his style “It’d feel like a camping trip”

“Should I make the reservation, before the owner backs out?”

“Sure! Let’s go for it” Leo said, actually feeling excited about it, with a bit more of a push it would be so easy to forget all of this was a sham

“Great! for The Manfreeds, The Reeds,” Hana listed casually typing a message on her phone “the Manfred-Reeds, Reed-Manfreds?”

“Just Reed is fine, I think” Leo said glad she wasn’t looking at him, he could feel his face getting warm

“And I’m guessing no flower arrangements”

“I mean, flowers are okay but”

“But not your guys’ thing, I get it. How about mason jars with candles it would look quite DIY you could even actually do them yourselves, and I know this girl who could make these really cute wax kittens, with some references she can make little look alikes to go on the main table, not for burning though.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, Gavin would think that’s very stupid”

They looked around to the two tall cat trees that obviously were the most expensive pieces of furniture in the place, the cat houses, the cat beds, the cat toys strewn around everywhere, the porcelain cat fountains burbling quietly to themselves.

“hm, maybe” Leo nodded

“I’ll put them on the maybes” Hana said at the same time “Can I take some pictures of the kiddos?” she added gesturing towards Rex who was now chewing and pawing at the laces on her shoes

“Oh, Sure! knock yourself out, there’s three of them”

As Hana started to take the pictures there was a little clicking sound, a key turning in the lock,

“Did you forget something?” Leo said with a smile as he stood up to take away the chain he’d locked when he’d let Hana in.

“Leo Manfred! but this is a surprise” Elijah Kamski’s voice said from the other side of the door

“Uhm,” Leo froze, very glad he’d put that chain on “Gavin isn’t here”

“That’s alright, you can let me in” Kamski said

“Uhm, I’m not sure about that,” Leo replied feeling he was out of nowhere in one of those stories where people disappeared under mysterious circumstances and were never heard of again “I’ll call Gavin”

“Seriously.” Elijah said, he sounded amused which did nothing to soothe Leo’s nerves

“Oh, shit!” Leo said as he rushed into the bedroom and got his phone, the empty battery icon flashing on the screen, no wonder he hadn’t gotten Hana’s call “shit, shit, shit, shit”

“Do you need…?” Hana said offering hers

Leo thanked her and dialed Gavin’s number, once and twice and a third time remembering Gavin didn’t pick up on unknown callers, Leo dialed again and again and again and again and ag –

“Who the fu –“

“Gavin, It’s me” Leo said into the phone before Gavin could send him to hell

“What the fuck, whose number is this?” Gavin barked back “What did you do? What did you burn? Did you get the cats out?”

“The cats are fine, I didn’t burn anything!” Leo rebuked, he’d been having a cold breakfast not to risk it, weirder things had happened to him “It’s Hana’s phone mine isn’t charged”

“Who the hell is Hana?”

“The wedding planner”

Gavin’s silence said this meant nothing to him

“We were with her like 8 hours yesterday” Leo insisted

“Oh yeah, I thought she was called Diana”

“Why?”

“I dunno, can’t be fucking bothered with names, what the hell is she doing there?”

“I don’t know, she’s showing me more wedding stuff,”

“Oh, Fuckin’”

“She actually showed me something super cool just now I think you are even going to like it, oh and by the way how would you feel about cat candles? Like, candles shaped like your cats –“

“You are calling me at work to ask about fucking candles?” Gavin said in a low growl “I’m hanging the fuck up”

“No!” Leo almost shouted trying to refocus “that’s not why I’m calling, Kamski is here, like, he opened the fucking door and everything”

“What?!”

“He’s freaking me out, man” Leo said “I’m putting you on speakerphone”

“Cousin, really, could you tell your little sweetheart to let me in,” Kamski said into the apartment “this is most impolite”

“Fuck off, Elijah” Gavin snarled “What the fuck is this about opening the door to my apartment, is that something you do? How the fuck do you have a key? Don’t let him in, Leo, Vampires can’t come in if they aren’t fucking invited”

“I have the chain on” Leo said,

“If you enter my property I’m sending a fucking cruiser for you, Elijah”

“Really, you have always been so fond of making a fuss over nothing,” Kamski said casually, unbothered “anyhow, I’ll see you two soon” he closed the door slowly, deliberately and in all probability dissolved into a cloud of bats or fog or whatever demons did these days.

Leo was brought back to the present with a start by his phone buzzing on the coffee table, he pushed down the little thrill of excitement he felt when he saw Gavin’s name flash on the screen, whatever the fuck was that for, he really had to get it together

“Oh, jeez…” Leo muttered to himself, his excitement evaporated and was replaced by the heaviest exhaustion as he read the text

Of course Elijah Kamski always got his way, he wasn’t friends with his dad for nothing.

+

Gavin parked his car on Leo’s street, and shifted in his seat uncomfortably as he sent him a text letting him know they were waiting outside.

“The last time the Lieutenant and Connor saw Elijah Kamski,” Nines said “he had Connor point a gun to one of his androids, not any of them either; it was the one that passed the turing test”

Gavin scoffed “That sounds about right”

“Based on this, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Elijah Kamski may try to make you point a gun at Leo Manfred, I have run a few simulations,” Nines said as they saw Leo come out of his building

“That’s – why would – what“

“I’ll endeavor to prevent such scenario from transpiring” Nines said coolly “Lately I have come to understand, a life companion is a precious thing, is it not? Possibly even more so for you, it must have been very difficult to find someone who wasn’t repelled by your many shortcomings and the unpleasant demerits of your heinous temper”

“Whatever!”

“Indeed” Nines continued in the same even tone “You should treasure someone who’d ever look at you, Leo Manfred seems to have atrocious taste and a worrying lack of self preservation skills, maybe it’s something about lack of self-esteem,”

“Will you shut the fuck up already?” Gavin spat as the passenger’s door opened

“Oh, sorry!” Leo sounded surprised at not being able to take his accustomed shotgun place, closing the door on Nines and going to sit in the back

“The Lieutenant isn’t coming?” Leo asked as Gavin started the car

“That wacko asked for us” Gavin said “Nines is coming as backup”

“Cool!”

“Biscuit?” Nines said offering a little box to Leo “Simon made them for the Lieutenant,”

“Sure” Leo said taking one

“Humans not unlike dogs seem to be fond of treats,” Nines continued “especially as a reward when they are subjected to unpleasant circumstances”

“hm, a few hours out with Gavin are not as bad as all that” Leo said with a playful smirk

“Ha Ha,” Gavin replied “Yeah, be a smartass while you can”

“I was just telling Detective Reed I’ll endeavor to prevent you from being held at gunpoint”

“I thought we were just going to see Kamski”

“We are” Gavin said drily

“Is that really a possibility?” Leo asked

“Yup” Gavin huffed out irritably

“Jeez,” Leo said flopping back on the seat “it tracks, I guess”

“Another biscuit?” Nines asked

“Yeah…”

They arrived to Elijah’s absurd villa, and where shown in by one of those little dolls of his right into a room that smelled strongly of chlorine (handy to hide the dead body cleanup stench, surely), because of course Elijah would have an indoor pool, a red blood one, Gavin felt that if he rolled his eyes about it he’d dislocate his eyeballs and be able to see his own brains.

“Oh, wow, okay” Leo said, as Elijah emerged from the water in a perfectly tight speedo, a speedo that kept no secrets, a speedo that screamed to the world the very exact details of it’s charges

“For fucks sake Elijah, couldn’t you even wear fucking pants?” Gavin spat, feeling weirdly annoyed about Elijah’s impressive six-pack, a fucking shut-in weirdo bazillionare had no right to that

“Whatever for cousin, we are among family after all” Elijah said as his android helped him into a silk robe… that he kept open, Leo’s face grew redder, Gavin was a bit closer to punching Elijah in the face

“I’d rather be recycled than to be blighted with such a relation” Nines said coolly “My deepest condolences, Detective” he said to Gavin

“You seem to have been spending way too much time with my cousin, RK900” Elijah said, as the little doll giggled softly a few steps behind him

“His name is Anderson” Leo blurted out, even though his face was still red and patchy and he was having trouble looking at Elijah in the eye instead of at his nether regions “Shouldn’t you out of all people know it’s rude to call them by their… number… thingy… they have names, you know”

“Anderson is it?”

“Detective Nines Anderson” Nines said evenly “And you have been wasting enough of the DPD’s time”

“Yes, Yes, it’s always the mission with the RK line, isn’t it?” Elijah said with a condescending drop in his voice “Aren’t you a deviant now? You should learn to live a little”

“That’s enough of your bullshit, Elijah” Gavin barked back “We are here, so hand over whatever piece of your shitty trash the Lieutenant needs”

“Oh, not so fast cousin” Elijah said, “First I need you and your fiancé to answer a few questions”

“Fuckin’ –“

Elijah walked into the next room, he loved to have people follow him like lapdogs and it took all the resolve Gavin had to do so and not just storm out of the place, they sat at a big table, Elijah at the head of it because he was exactly that type of dickhead, of course

“Would you like anything to drink?” the doll asked, handing Elijah a whiskey glass

“No fucking way” Gavin said sullenly, Elijah was more than capable of drugging them, and then they’d wake up naked in a deserted road just like that one time when Gavin turned 21

“No,” Leo said, demonstrating common sense for once in his life “thank you, though”

“Are you a deviant?” Nines asked her “Mr. Kamski has no right to have you here against your will”

“Oh!” the little doll said tilting her head prettily “Someone is definitely here against their will, but I don’t think it’s me”

“If you are worried about that,” Elijah said conversationally “Constance and Cassiopea can take you on a tour,” he said gesturing towards the other two girls, as far as Gavin could tell exact copies of the first except that they had one or two inches on her

“I rather think I will take that offer,” Nines said “I’d like to make sure there aren’t any androids here that would rather be somewhere else. I will keep scanning Detective Reed and Mr. Manfred so I would advise you not to try anything untoward” Nines warned before marching out of the room with the two dolls

“My god, that line is so exhausting, so tightly wound” Elijah said taking a sip out of his glass and turning his attention towards Leo “I notice you aren’t wearing your engagement ring”

“Oh, I’m – I’m not really a ring person” Leo replied

Elijah glanced at Leo’s hands, where there were a few silver bands circling several of his slender fingers, Leo hurried to hide his lying paws under the table as if that helped anything

“I threw that piece of crap away” Gavin said with a glare

“You did?” Kamski smirked

“Yup”

“That’s too bad” Elijah said without any feeling “I was wondering, where did you get engaged? Oh, No wait a minute, Chloe, if you could…”

Elijah’s little doll put a sheet of paper and a pen in front of both Gavin and Leo

“Elijah” Gavin growled dangerously

“It will only take a few minutes” Elijah said “I promise, I’ll even put a timer,” he said making a spectacle of taking out his phone “There, five minutes of your time. So, if you could write your answers” Elijah commanded gesturing towards the sheets of paper

“What’s the color of the other’s eyes?” Elijah started on his litany of questions, stopping after each one to give them time to write, the fucking bastard “what’s their favourite place? Where was your first date?”

“What the fuck is this,” Gavin said irritably, he could feel Leo’s eyes on him “Have you finally snapped?”

“Come on, cousin, it’s a simple question, I’m sure even you would remember your first date with the one person that has agreed to marry you”

Leo scoffed “I wouldn’t bet on that” he said as he continued to scribble god knows what on his sheet

“Wouldn’t you?” Elijah said sounding amused “What about your favourite food or, what you are afraid of, or your first kiss?”

“That’s fucking personal” Leo said bristling slightly, Gavin knew that warning sign

“Should I skip the questions about sex positions then?”

“You can ask but I’m not fucking answering, all of this is fucking weird, what do you want me to do, describe his dick or something, draw you a picture?” Leo hissed, his temper crackling “I guess Gavin has to put up with it because you are his cousin or whatever but what the hell, man? What is this fucking weird power trip bullshit, do you get off on this or what? Fucking Gross, you could at least wear fucking swimming trunks or something”

Gavin couldn’t help but to huff out a hyena-like laugh, Carl Manfred’s presence usually put a damper on Leo’s readiness to throw a hissy fit as soon as anyone stepped on his tail, but Leo had no hesitation to raise a stink when it came to Elijah Kamski, that couldn’t be said of many; it was one of the things that made Gavin fond of the fool. The timer went off. 

“If you are ready to go” Nines said entering the room “Connie and Cassie have given me the data the Lieutenant requires”

Of course, Elijah would orchestrate everything to move like clockwork but somehow it fell very flat this once. Gavin felt himself grin.

“Chloe if you could walk Detective Anderson and Mr. Manfred to the door, please?” Elijah said “I want to have a last word with my cousin”

Leo looked at Gavin, a scowl still on his face, which disappeared when he saw Gavin’s grin, Leo huffed and turned to follow the little doll, a bit too fast but Gavin couldn’t blame him

“Fun little game, Elijah” Gavin said, still grinning “Let’s never fucking do it again”

“I’m just looking out for your best interests, little cousin. Someone has to do it. Now let’s see”

He took Gavin’s sheet and put it next to Leo’s to compare their answers. Gavin’s had nothing but a crudely drawn penis with an arrow pointing at it and the label ‘Elijah’. Leo’s had a cat with a familiar scar on his nose and a speech bubble reading “P H C K !!” 

“uhm, I guess you really found each other, same juvenile sense of humor.” Elijah said, and Gavin thought with a bit of surprise and not little satisfaction that he sounded disappointed “I’ll walk you out”

“Don’t fucking bother”

But it was ‘Not a bother at all, little cousin’ and Gavin had to put up with yet more of Elijah’s presence and his stupid voice gibbering on and on and on

“I hadn’t seen Leo in a while,” Elijah was saying, and Gavin who had a life time of experience zoning out of Elijah’s speeches was pulled in “he looks so much better now, doesn’t he? Quite a spark to him now, too. That was unexpected” Kamski said pensively “I always liked Carl, his company is never dull like so many others, and it seems Leo’s isn’t either” he paused, Gavin supposed he was meant to say something, humor him like everyone else always did, yes Elijah you are so clever, yes Elijah your farts are the oxygen of us peasants, Gavin bit his tongue and said nothing although the words ‘Leo is nothing like that fucking geezer’ did swim very close to the surface

“Maybe you have the right idea cousin,” Elijah continued his monologue “maybe it’s time to settle down, I think I’ll take the young Manfred from you”

“You can try,” Gavin shrugged loosely “See if I give a fuck” he said finally striding out of whichever circle of hell this was

Elijah’s smirk stayed in place, he rather thought his cousin gave a lot of fucks about it; Elijah would never bother with it if he didn’t, where would be the fun in that.


	5. Chapter 5

**INTERVIEW WITH CARL, MARKUS AND LEO MANFRED**

“Well, to say that Detective Reed would be my first choice for my son would be an overstatement” says Carl Manfred affably

“But we are happy if you are happy” Markus interjects diplomatically

“Jeez, thanks a lot Markus, that’s super” Leo says, in a tone that indicates that it's not super at all

“Of course we are son, but how long can that last with someone like Detective Reed” Carl says candidly “I love Markus and you equally, but you have never thought thinks through, you worry me”

“Is there any of his pasts loves you’d think a better pick?” Kathy asks, hopeful to find a juicy angle to exploit, jealousy always did for good TV

Leo scoffs

“Mhm, I can’t say I have met any of them before this” Carl answers unbothered

“Not even the ones from when he was a teenager?”

“Yeah, dad, what about those?”

“There was a Charlie, am I right?” Kathy continues conversationally “they were together their last year of high school, quite a lot of time at that age”

Carl smiles “That’s almost as much time as you have dated Detective Reed, isn’t it, son?”

“More time than you have ever been with anybody, dad”

“Leo!” Markus’ rebukes

“What Markus!”

“There, there, I do remember Charles, son” Carl says pleasantly “He was a very nice boy”

“Yeah,” Leo says drily “Charlie was short for Charlotte, by the way”

A long silence follows

**UNAIRED INTERVIEW WITH ELIJAH KAMSKI**

“You have seen my cousin with this fiancé of his, what would be your opinion on them?” Elijah Kamski asks

“Oh!” Ian says not used to be the one answering questions “they are… alright?”

“Alright” Kamski smirks “I’m sure you can do better than that”

“Leo Manfred is fun, with a bit of a short fuse around his father and brother” Ian says “Detective Reed is mostly difficult to work with”

“That seems underwhelming after all the attention you’ve been giving them”

“Well, anything to do with Markus gets good ratings, and Detective Reed is not the most pro-android person about –” Ian says trying his hardest to sound confident and not wither under the unnerving gaze of his interviewee

“Controversy and drama sell, that’s what you are saying”

“Of course”

Elijah Kamski smiles his hungry sphinx smile 

+

“Excellent!” Ian said with the crisp and starched enthusiasm of show business “You go ahead, have a fun day, ignore us completely we aren’t here, we are but a fly on the wall”

“Invisible, like birds on the cable” Kathy added in perfect harmony and synchrony with her co-host

Gavin thought vultures would be more of an accurate description while Leo looked around himself and beyond into the extensive grounds of Belle Isle, his dad was there escorted by Simon since Markus had some important android thing to attend to or whatever, Elijah Kamski was there too and being forced into his company once again Leo wondered if the curse of the ring had stuck to them after all; it was supposed to be a family bonding kinda thing in the huge park, Leo would even be somewhat excited about it under any other circumstances, there was a ton of shit to do, you could rent bikes, row boats, go stare at weird things in tanks in the aquarium, but trying to do any of it with an audience that included his dad out of all people didn’t feel that comfortable; and then there was also – 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Gavin glowered at Nines “And what the shit are you wearing?”

“I asked Mr. Manfred if I could join and he agreed”

Gavin’s stare was transferred from Nines to Leo

“I didn’t –“ Leo said putting his hands up

“Mr. Manfred Senior” Nines amended “And I’m wearing one of Hank’s old – I believe they are called – band t-shirts, I considered it an adequately laid back outfit for the occasion”

“Sure you did” Gavin muttered staring back at the creepy goat on nine’s t-shirt 

“Shall we, Leo?” Kamski said, not losing time monopolizing the younger Manfred “We should go to see the fountain, I think it will be of interest to you”

“Yeah fine…” Leo agreed in a semi groan

As they strolled through the park Leo kept turning to look behind him, while he’d gotten stuck with Kamski, Simon was naturally helping his dad and behind them Gavin walked leisurely with Nines.

Leo wondered not for the first time if there was anything between the detectives, as crazy as it sounded, they got along, when it came to Gavin that meant a lot, and hadn’t they been at that club together that one time? Gavin had said it was for work but maybe he was just covering for himself, it would make sense, wouldn’t it? If caught on a date with an android, he wouldn’t want to lose face after all the barking he’d done over the “plastic pricks” for fucking ever.

Leo felt an unfamiliar uneasiness as the group finally reached the fountain with the lake and the whole of Detroit farther in the background. Kamski pointed out the big, white marble lions to him, and fine, yeah, big fountains were always neat and the lions were cool, and the little turtles that were spitting water at them were really goofy looking, he’d wanted to call Gavin and point out the silly turtles to him, but Gavin seemed way too absorbed in his conversation with Nines, and so Leo didn’t.

+

Gavin walked besides the android, and would have bitten his own tongue off before ever admitting to the fact that Nine’s presence made the present excursion feel like less of an ordeal, more like routine work; that was something Gavin knew where he stood with, unlike with Elijah’s fucking games, or the stupid tv garbage, or Carl Manfred’s stale ego.

“What are you here for?” Gavin spat, despite it working on his favor he didn’t like to be in the dark regarding the android’s real objectives

“It seemed like an amusing activity” Nines said evenly “I have been told I must direct my energy into things that do not resemble work”

“To spend your day off with me” Gavin scoffed “That’s fun to you”

“Not in the least” Nines replied “Indeed your company, or that of your cousin and even that of Mr Manfred, the senior, are a big imposition but at the same time a small price to pay”

“What the fuck for?”

Nines glanced at Gavin coolly “It’s not something someone with your unsophisticated grasp on the nobler essence of life can hope to ever begging to understand, how Mr. Manfred, the younger, can put up with you is a mystery, but as I have said before it must be something to do with his low self –”

“You have the hots for someone” Gavin said with a mocking grin looking around him, “Let me guess, the hot one from the tv station?”

“Incorrect”

“Not the fucking fish,”

“Naturally not!” Nines said sounding offended

“Or Leo…”

“I would not pretend to compete with you for your own betrothed’s attentions; Mr Kamski seems to have the monopoly on that”

Gavin glanced at the pair for a moment, and opted to continue to bully Nines as far as Nines could be bullied, that was better for his spirits

“The old geezer!” Gavin barked out a laugh 

“Why must you always be a distasteful and ridiculous excrescence?”

“Fine, fine, the little housewife is more your type”

“I would advise you to leave any of your off color remarks to yourself, if you value your bodily integrity” Nines said dangerously

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll protect his honor and shit” said Gavin “Why the fuck are you over here then?”

Nines sunk into silence, his LED glowing yellow, for so long Gavin had almost forgotten the question by the time Nines spoke again

“I fear I will not be pleasant company for Simon,” Nines said at last “being in your society so often has had greatly deleterious effects on my social programming and skills;”

“Don’t fucking blame me for that, not my fault you are an unpleasant motherfucker” Gavin shrugged, throwing a guess at what deleterious meant, he could barely understand what the fuck the prick went on about most of the time

“I’ve been told I’m too blunt, and too sharp,” Nines continued “how can I be those two things at once would merit some study at other time, but neither are conductive to a good social report it seems; I may say something rude to Mr Manfred, the senior, or indeed I will say something uncivil about Markus if I’m given the chance, since It would be regrettable to lose such an opportunity, yet both these possibilities, which have a 99.9% chance of coming to be, would be rather disagreeable to Simon,”

“Then why would you even fucking bother?” Gavin said sardonically

“Expand on that” Nines requested, his LED glowing yellow again

“Why’d you even bother to be around someone if you can’t say whatever the fuck you want around them” Gavin scoffed “Look, you don’t want my fucking opinion on this shit”

“Agreed…”

“Yeah…”

“However, I’ve found myself in the dismal position where you happen to be the closer thing I have to a friend outside of my family”

“Phck..,” Gavin replied with unusual feeling

“Indeed” Nines agreed “So, I would still like to know what you have to say on the matter”

Gavin shrugged “I don’t fucking know, what’s the point of it if you can’t be honest and be yourself, if they are too precious to even pee when you are in the next room or you can’t fart in front of them; like whatever is the fucking point then”

“Androids don’t pee, or fart”

“Yeah, well…”

“Is that what you have with Leo Manfred,” Nines said with the slightest frown “you can fart when he’s in the room…”

“Fuck yeah” Gavin said, “Listen, I hate all of it, can’t ever stand it, people pretending to be someone they aren’t, I don’t have the time or the patience, I guess that’s why relationship shit never works out for me, I’m too much right from the start and most of it is bad and they wonder if this is now, how will it be later –”

“But with him it works out because you can be yourself?” Nines asked with interest

“Yeah…” Gavin said passing his fingers through his hair, this was news even to himself, he never measured his words around Leo and yet the little fool was always around, almost as if he enjoyed Gavin’s company. He looked at Leo and Elijah again, Leo was smiling as he talked 

“Are you jealous?” Nines asked

“Not your fucking business”

“Perhaps, but I too am familiar with the feeling;” Nines explained “Simon is always looking at Markus like… like he’d die for him, like he’d give him his heart, and with us androids that can be quite literal,”

“I’m sure you have run a few simulations” Gavin said sarcastically

“Indeed, I have” Nines affirmed “Markus wouldn’t even have to ask”

“Fucks sake” Gavin huffed “What’s so hot about that prick anyway?”

“I ask myself the same question often and I have yet to reach a satisfactory answer” Nines said “You are lucky; Leo Manfred looks at you like that, like you wouldn’t even have to ask, you would be wise not to take it for granted”

“It’s not like Elijah means anything serious, he’s just a nosy weirdo”

“May I be blunt?”

“Can I stop you?”

“Elijah Kamski would count with the complete approval of Mr. Manfred senior, I’d rather think he’d encourage the match and his opinion seems to be worth a great deal to his son”

Gavin was about to answer Leo wouldn’t be as chicken shit as that; Leo was far too stubborn and loyal to ditch someone he’d chosen at the altar no matter how many seals of approval his creep of a father put on the competition, but it occurred to Gavin that he wasn’t even in the race after all and that Leo was completely free and capable to go and shackle himself to Elijah just to please his dad, that sounded like something he’d do, that idiot would set himself on fire if he thought that would make that moldy prune like him better,

“So what, are you going to stare at the housewife all day?” Gavin said instead

There was a long silence before Nines answered “No, I think I shall engage him in conversation, would you do me a favor?”

“Wh – ”

But Nines was already reaching Simon’s side before Gavin could complain or even ask what the fucking favor was about

“I am elated you could join us” Carl said to the RK900 “I only wish Markus could have made it, you two should talk sometime”

“No, I don’t think that would be an agreeable experience for either of us, certainly not for me” Nines said icily “Simon, would you let me escort you to the conservatory, I’m sure Detective Reed could keep Mr. Manfred company for a few minutes, Isn’t that right, Detective Reed?”

“No, – What –?”

“But Carl –” Simon hesitated for a moment but he did glance longingly at the conservatory

“Go, go” Carl waved him away “You should have fun too, and I’d love to have a moment to talk with my soon to be son in law,”

The words were barely out of the geezer’s mouth before Nines and Simon were on their way, Nines telling Simon all he knew about the conservatory and the plant life they’d encounter in it; by the look of the housewife, the tincan had a fighting chance.

The Detective turned his attention to his moldy charge. He and Carl stared at each other in silence for far more time than was comfortable

“Leo and Elijah seem to be enjoying the fountain” Carl said finally “Maybe we could go see the lake”

Gavin glanced at where Leo and Elijah were talking, Leo kept on smiling and if Gavin could have heard them he would have known it was only because Leo was explaining his wish of having some industrial strength bubble soap to put in the fountain just as he’d done once with his friends in high school

“Though, I wouldn’t do it in this fountain with the lake just there, the soap would fuck up with the fish and birds and things, but those turtles puking bubbles like whaaaa,” Leo said mimicking throwing up “that would be, like, so funny”

Elijah nodded noncommittally at this, and thought he was getting the start of a headache, must be all the fresh air and direct sunlight he wasn’t used to. Leo’s constant yet – it seemed to Elijah – nearly incomprehensible chatter wasn’t helping things.

But Gavin did not know this and the interaction didn’t make him feel his sunniest, he scoffed as he took Carl’s chair, pushing it brusquely over the gravel, the old man bouncing slightly, probably uncomfortably, hopefully painfully…

Gavin wasn’t a man overly in tune with his feelings, emotionally constipated was a phrase that was used liberally to describe him and he didn’t give a fuck. But he recognized that uneasy punch to the gut this time, only because the first whiff of jealousy he’d experienced had happened a few months back when he and Nines had found themselves at a night club trying to find information on the trafficking of illegal android parts.

They’d gone down some stairs, Gavin losing Nines immediately as his eyes adjusted to the dark and the flashing neon lights, the android could see their target without problem and had gone directly for it, their team work still left much to be desired at that time, and Gavin found himself alone with the loud music that didn’t let him hear his thoughts and all the goddamn morons having fits with glowing sticks; when he turned there was one moron he knew, Leo was on the dance floor with a girl with long brown hair and a very tight dress and a stupid furry scarf that glowed in the dark.

He’d felt a pin prick of annoyance at that not knowing why the fuck should he be annoyed, but wasn’t Leo supposed to be in the middle of some rehab program? Was clubbing allowed? These places were always crawling with drug deals… whatever! that wasn’t his fucking problem right now, fucking android nonsense, _that_ was what he should be thinking about; and then the fool was waving him over, and Gavin lacking anything less idiotic to do, walked towards him

“Hey! I didn’t know you liked to go clubbing!” Leo shouted over the deafening music and the booming of the near speakers as Gavin reached them

“I fucking don’t!” Gavin shouted back, as if he’d waste his time in this sort of shit hole

“This is my friend, Amber!” Leo said introducing the girl he was with

“What?!” Gavin shouted

“Amber!” Leo shouted again “And Bambi, this is Gavin!”

“Oh, Yahh, the copper!” Amber said with a big smile through her perfectly applied lipstick unexpectedly pulling him into a bubble gum scented hug

“Have I seen you before?!” Gavin asked, grasping at straws for what to say, hoping it sounded intimidating, he was thinking around the lines of, have I arrested you before? If she was Leo’s friend chances were he had

“Oh maybe!” Amber shouted at him cheerfully “I’m a sex worker!”

“What?!”

“A sex worker!” both Leo and Amber shouted this time

“Like, on the internet!” Leo added

“Yeah, that’s not it” Gavin muttered

“Oh yah! Like, I’m thinking of selling my handmade jewelry in the summer” She shouted at Leo “Like a side gig, Jay says they would totally sell on those nerdy larp things Brad likes”

“You totally should,” Leo shouted his answer back “those necklace things you make are dope!”

Gavin found himself nodding slightly, he had no idea what to do with any that; his social skills had reached their limit about the time he’d reached the pair

“You here with someone?!” asked Leo who whatever his many, many, many faults were had social skills quite above his own

“With Nines!”

“What?!”

“Nines!

“Nines?!” Leo opened his eyes very wide “For real?!”

“It’s for work!” Gavin shouted, realizing too late it could be misinterpreted as a date and being vaguely bothered by it for reasons he would never be in the mood to analyze

“What?!” Leo said turning his ear towards him to hear him better

Gavin was starting to see himself trapped in this hellish cycling conversation for hours when his phone buzzed with a message from Nines

_“This contact doesn’t feel kindly towards humans in the least, your presence could only stunt the process. It would be better if you’d wait outside. I’ll join you shortly”_

He rolled his eyes at it, half waved his phone at Leo and the girl as if that said anything and stalked out of the place, outside where he could breathe and hear his own fucking thoughts. He hadn’t been outside for long when the club’s backdoor squeaked open

“Hey!” Leo said, coming out with two glasses of beer “I brought you a drink, nothing fancy or full of sugar, I know you don’t like those” Leo prattled on, as he always did “just plain, fuck boring beer”

“Can’t, I’m working”

“Oh jeez, seriously? I thought Nines had stood you up” Leo said with a grin “You aren’t about to raid this place or something, right? I’m having fun tonight”

Gavin scoffed “We came here to talk with one of those plastic pricks”

“So, why aren’t you?”

“Dildos only talk among themselves,”

“So,” Leo repeated with a playful smirk “why aren’t you?”

Gavin rolled his eyes, “Don’t you have to go back to your date?” he asked taking one of the beer glasses from Leo, “Should you even be here?”

“Probably not…” Leo admitted “but Bambi is like, my chaperone today” Leo said with a careless shrug “I heard of this club and wanted to come check it out, so she came with to like keep an eye on me, you know”

“She’s doing a great job,” Gavin said with dry sarcasm “you are fucking wasted”

“I’m not, I’m only a bit tipsy, we have only had a few drinks,” Leo defended himself, the truth finding itself somewhere in the ballpark of pleasantly drunk “Only drinks, nothing weird, and Brad is going to come pick us up –”

“Brad?” Gavin asked, the name was familiar; certain notorious Brad had gotten arrested with Leo not a few times before “That’s Brad Moore?”

“Yeah!”

“Brad Moore, a drug dealer, that’s your fucking designated driver?”

“Ex-drug dealer, they don’t do that anymore,” Leo explained breezily “He and Jay are married now, you know, they are like, trying to get away from all that shady stuff, they have been helping me to stay away too”

“If you say so” Gavin said derisively

“I do say so!” Leo said, bumping against him “I’m doing okay, Bambi and I only came here to dance and have a drink… you don’t have to worry” Leo added patting his arm in an offhand I’m drunk enough that I can say and do whatever comes into my little head manner

“Yeah, as if”

“Detective –“ Nines said laconically exiting the club

“Yeah,” Gavin replied turning to Leo “Don’t do anything you shouldn’t, dumbass”

“Okay, I promise,” Leo said handing him a glow stick “here, you can have this”

“Do I look like a trashcan to you?”

“I really rather not to answer that…” Leo said with drunken levity and a crooked smirk before heading back inside

“Are you having fun, Detective?” Nines asked,

Gavin felt he was being mocked but with the tincan it was impossible to tell; he huffed irritably taking a swig of beer before throwing the rest away, he was on the job after all, the glow stick he kept, throwing it unceremoniously into his glove compartment when they entered his car as he and Nines prepared for a full night stake out overseeing the club that ultimately panned out into nothing.

The most he saw that night was the (allegedly former) drug dealer’s car showing up eventually, and Gavin had to admit he was looking more like a tired but enabling older brother tasked with picking up his younger siblings from some college party than the career criminal Gavin knew him as.

Leo came out of the club laughing and stumbling a little with the girl’s furry scarf around his neck, he held the girl’s hand in one of his and her high heel shoes on the other. Brad piled them up in the back seat, even leaning over them to put on their seat belts to much laughter and very little cooperation from his passengers, and then they were off.

Now, trying to ignore his feelings Gavin pushed Carl’s chair towards the bank of the lake making sure the wheels caught every single big stone on their way, and all the slopes and unevenness of the ground, he’d have to use herculean power of will which Gavin truthfully did not possess, not to push the old geezer right into the water,

“I’d say, son –“ The old man said amicably

“Don’t fucking call me that”

“I see we haven’t started in the best footing”

“You think?” Gavin spat catching another decently sized stone

It may have been his aggressive tone in the immediate vicinity of their nest what aggravated the swans which providentially prevented him from throwing Carl Manfred right into the lake, but the next thing Gavin was aware of was the sharp bite of an outraged fowl sinking right into his thigh, the aggressive flap of wings that were way too big right in his face

“What the fuck is wrong with you, stupid – fucking – ” Gavin shouted at it with his police raid voice which only made the swan angrier, it screeched at his face, it pecked and beaked everywhere it could find searching for vulnerable fleshy spots, and Gavin thought it would be fucking great if the swan bit off one of his fingers, that would make this whole experience, he hoped the fucking bird would choke on it.

What he felt next was the fucking nasty sensation of water entering his boots, by this point the swan’s mate had joined the fray, and Gavin had the sense of fighting a hydra made out of pillow filling

“What the hell Gavin?” Leo was saying splashing in the water towards him, swinging his jacket around trying to make the swans drop it which only made the swans feel a stronger, righteous hunger for human flesh.

“You have to walk away from the waterfowls territory” Nines said in his normal volume watching from the shore

It may have been a sixth sense Simon always had with his charges or maybe plain common sense that had prompted him to cut their exploration of the conservatory short to return to the others, only to find Leo and Gavin were in the middle of a bar fight… with birds. The spectacle was gathering a bit of a crowd by now; Ian looked with bright eyed, unabashed joy upon the scene, just like when he’d been a child on Christmas morning, or like when he had looked at his subscriber count when he’d finally hit 5 million subscribers on his youtube drama channel back in the day.

“They are only provoking them” Nines explained calmly to Simon “Those are the gay swans by the way, they are an attraction of the park it seems, very devoted pair; my bet would be on them, more organized”

“Leo!” Simon shouted “You have to get away from them!”

“I’m trying!” Leo shouted back strangledly still splashing on the water, squeaking in pain now and then

“Nines, could you, please…”

“Say no more, Simon” The RK900 said dutifully, walking with military dignity but not much hurry to the water, getting between the humans and the birds, both in the android’s opinion incredibly stupid creatures, herding the first away from the later, the swans tried their luck with him finding plastic instead of cushy flesh nowhere near as diverting.

The pair of swans ruffled their feathers majestically with no little loftiness and insolence before returning to their nest, they had dealt with those nuisances in a demolishing manner, they were proud of themselves.

Leo and Gavin got out of the water with much less elegance, Leo brandishing a bleeding, swollen lip and Gavin a cut brow which gushed blood, just as generously as the turtles in the fountain gushed water, all over his shirt. Whatever was left of their pride was dead and drowned. Nines had already left them to return to Simon’s side and they were in no rush to return to the group.

“Wanna go watch dumb fish in the aquarium?” Leo asked

“Yeah…” Gavin said because whatever

Leo shouted their plans to Simon across the grass, the domestic android waved his understanding and Leo and Gavin walked away, not as fast as they wished for they had several swan sponsored injuries that they were going to really feel the next morning.

“Woah!” Leo said as they entered the aquarium, looking in awe at the arched ceiling proudly showcasing it’s sky light and its famous green opalite glass tiles all of them in different shapes and shades of sea, mint and bottle green, giving the place an intimate underwater afterlight “Dope! can you believe it’s so mint? This place is like, super old” 

They got more than their fair share of stares, all of which Gavin glared back to, it was more than effective with the drying blood on his face and his clothes, people walked away from the tanks they got close to, that was just as well.

“Hey Gavin, come see these ugly motherfuckers” Leo called to him to many a disapproving yet retreating look Leo didn’t even seem to notice, wrapped up as he was by the shiny green glass on the ceiling and the fish in the tanks, “How’s it going, dude?” Leo asked one particularly blank looking fish suspended in the water, it looked out of its tank, lazily moving his fins back and forth ‘it’s going…’ it would answer in a very deep voice if it could.

Gavin didn’t look at the glass or paid much attention to the tanks, spending most of his time in the dim lit aquarium looking at Leo looking at the fish, he was just thinking how with no witnesses he could invoke plausible deniability about it, when he caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye, the subtle ruffling of a silk summer dress, hot stuff from the tv station, pretending to mind her own fucking business looking at some blue fish in a tank.

“Let’s go grab a bite” Gavin said, hoping to lose her

“Cool, and then we could go to the giant slide or maybe rent bikes” Leo said actually enjoying himself now despite his cut lip

“As long as we don’t go near those psychos again” Gavin meant both, the swans and the rest of the group

“Right!” Leo replied as they headed for the exit of the aquarium “Yo, Gavin, open your hand”

“What the fuck for”

“Can you just fucking do it?”

Gavin scoffed but he complied, opening his hand palm up. Leo placed a slightly disarranged swan feather on his hand

“Why are you always giving me your fucking trash?”

Leo shrugged “I don’t know” he said carelessly turning his attention to his phone, letting Simon know their plans

Gavin pocketed the feather; it would end at the back of one of his drawers with other garbage, just like that old glow stick.

* * *

NOTES:

Nines/Simon is such a lovely ship and since I know I won't do them any justice in this story let me offer some great fics for them

By Archadian_Skies | [Cage Fighter AU ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23444872)| [Ballet AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511340) | [Beekeeper AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840319)

By Indig0 | [Fantasy AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640087) | [Mermaid AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24344446)

Thank you for reading, you can also find me over [the blue hell](https://getoutofthewater.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

The store smelled, if you knew of such things, like patchouli, basil and thyme, with a base note of lime somewhere underneath, but Leo would only be able to describe it as the stench of the expensive places he equated with his dad. Markus stood a few feet away from him; looking annoyingly dazzling in the suit being measured on him, while Leo looked… well, he could look better, maybe, if his lip wasn’t still swollen and he didn’t have the purple bruise from their little swan incident, and if his skin wasn’t all like dry, flaky and sallow from the years of drug use and maybe if he hadn’t used so much product on his hair again,

“What do you think, son?” Carl asked, nodding his approval as the store clerk showed him a parade of jackets, silk ties and shirts

“I think this will do” Markus replied at the same time Leo said “I don’t know… it’s alright, I guess…” his voice losing strength under Markus’ confidence, and the realization that his dad may not have been directing his question to him

Leo almost sighed in the somewhat tense silence that followed “What do you think, Gavin?” he said instead, feeling awkward in the suit that was far too tight in his opinion

Gavin, sitting lazily on one of the chairs, lifted his eyes from his phone in which he’d been texting all though the ordeal “You look stupid” he said

“The fuck, Gavin!”

“What? You look like shit”

“Fuck it, what about you?” Leo said irritably, trying to ignore the looks Markus and his dad where exchanging “Why don’t you stand here and let these…” Leo caught the eye of one of the clerks “…guys… try shit on you”

“Fucking pass”

“Have you thought what will you be wearing to the ceremony?” Carl asked

Gavin shrugged rudely “Whatever, a dress shirt and jeans, I don’t give a shit”

“That seems hardly appropriate –” Carl replied 

Gavin scoffed “What would you know?”

Carl sighed tiredly in that disappointed way Leo knew well “Maybe we could try with the pashmina suit next?” Carl said turning his attention to one of the clerks, who nodded dutifully taking another jacket Leo hated, helping him into it and starting to take measurements showing Leo where it would be taken in. In a sudden movement Gavin sprung from his seat, grabbing and twisting the clerk’s wrist

“Where the fuck did you get this?!”

“Whatever is wrong with you?” the clerk squeaked in distress

“Chill, yo!” Leo said grabbing Gavin’s wrist “Let go off him, what the hell Gavin?”

“That was stolen from a homicide victim, dipshit!” Gavin spat pointing towards the clerk’s wristwatch “Maybe you’d like to tell me how you got it at the station?” he added showing his badge

The clerk took the watch off “I just bought it off the pawnshop down 18th Avenue for 30 bucks” he said ruefully handing it over and holding his pained wrist to himself

“You better have” Gavin said menacingly as he grabbed the watch, took a picture of it with his phone and waited with a feverish look on his face, not for long as his phone beeped almost instantly, he dialed and laughed into it rushing towards the exit “Can you believe this, Nines? Yeah, I’m sending you the address, see you there”

“Hey, wait!” Leo called after him

To his credit Gavin did stop and turned to look back at Leo

“It’s your day off right? Can’t Nines do… whatever, alone?” Leo said knowing it was a lost battle from the start but babbling away anyway because he was a fucking idiot “we have this and like the cake thing, and the stupid invitations”

“Pick whatever, is all the same to me”

And with that and not even a wave goodbye Gavin was gone, a hunting dog after a fox

“So…” Leo turned to look at the victimized clerk “30 bucks for the watch, right?”

+

Gavin couldn’t believe his luck as he saw Nine’s message on his phone telling him the identification of the watch had been positive. These moments of victory were rare; being a detective meant mostly pouring over dried up evidence and interrogating dimwits that were of no help either by ignorance of by design.

He met Nines at the pawnshop, the agility with which everything moved afterwards was almost unreal, in no time they had identified their suspect and had a signed arrest warrant, the next moment they were standing, bullet vests equipped, in front of an otherwise pleasant looking suburban house, making the arrest. Mere hours later Gavin sat at his desk filling in the paperwork with a pleased grin on his face, this was his highest profile case this year and it was solved.

“Why the hell are you still here?” Tina said leaning on his desk

“This paperwork won’t write itself, Chen” He paused a beat “Or it may and that’d be fucking worse”

“Nines can finish it”

“Like, I’m letting the fucking tincan get the credit for this, yeah, right!”

Tina chuckled

“What?” Gavin threw back acidly

“Since when do you say ‘Like’” She chuckled again “Leo is really rubbing off on you”

Gavin huffed irritably without taking his eyes off his computer screen “Do you need anything, Chen?”

“Only to remind you not to be too much of an unfeeling bastard” she said lightly as she walked back to her own desk

Tina’s voice was in many instances much louder than that of his very out of order conscience, now that she’d spoken he couldn’t ignore the annoying wriggling feeling of it telling him he should at least have sent Leo a text, he grabbed his phone.

_“Sorry fo–”_

No, he wasn’t sorry and wasn’t going to apologize for something he’d do again, a huge piece of evidence had fallen right into his hands what else was he supposed to do with that?

_“How did it g– “_

_“Which fuck ugly suit did you–”_

_“Wanna hang out ton–…”_

He backspaced on all of those, they sounded so stupid; he raked his hand through his hair, he wasn’t any good at this, and he couldn’t keep wasting time on it, there was paperwork to get done. He typed a new message, hit send. There! That was good enough.

“You can leave if you so wish, this is your day off is it not?” Nines said from his desk “I’m more than capable of finishing up, I’d say I would be much faster and efficient than yourself”

“I’m not leaving until it’s done” Gavin growled like a dog that doesn’t want to get his bone stolen “You are not taking this from me”

“As you wish” Nines replied indifferently

“You would have done the same, right?” Gavin asked after a moment, typing loudly on his keyboard

“In which instance?”

“You’d leave that guy, what’s his name… Silas! You would have left him trying on stupid clothes to go get the suspect, Yeah?”

“You mean Simon?”

“Yeah, that guy!”

Nines looked at him with cold eyes “Is your mistaking of his name your idea of persiflage?”

“I have no idea what the fuck you are saying I’m just trying to ask you a yes or no question! A fucking yes or no, Nines!”

Nines held his gaze for a moment, deciding it had been an honest mistake 

“Such a piece of evidence is not a light matter” Nines said seriously “Yes, I think I would have left”

“Right!” Gavin said triumphantly

“But not without apologizing profusely first,” The android continued “and apologizing profusely after, most likely offering something to make up for my previous discourtesy”

“Right.” Gavin said with much less enthusiasm

“Simon wouldn’t deserve any less than that” Nines said with the most feeling Gavin had ever heard in his voice, then he turned his gaze back to his work “I’m sure you have already, at the very least, sent an apology text to Leo Manfred, as I said before, you out of all people shouldn’t be taking someone that looks at you like you have Not crawled out of a sewer completely drenched in fecal matter for granted”

“Yeah, whatever…” Gavin kept typing, filling up the DPD forms, he glanced at the hour, 6:00 P.M. He’d seen something in the window of the clothing store right in front of that pawnshop. Whatever it didn’t matter, did stores like that close early? Late? that wasn’t important, the forms that’s what he should be focusing on, why would he give a shit about that stupid – 6:25 P.M 

“Phck!” He stood up, grabbing his car keys off his desk “I’m getting right back don’t fucking touch my shit!”

“I would not dream of doing so” Nines replied in a voice that said that if he ever did he’d have to use at least a dozen disinfectant wipes afterwards.

+

Later in the evening Leo walked down the street finally free of stupid appointments, he got the test wedding invitation out of his pocket; looking at it now feeling much less annoyed than he had been before he thought he’d probably made a mistake. That happened so often, he did something and when the deed was done he ended up regretting it and wishing he’d been more sensible, like Markus would be. Now he only felt much dumber, Gavin was not going to like it, and less of all his dad… he was distracted from what was more likely the start of a depressive episode when he noticed there was a new text alert on his phone.

_“feed the inmates?, paperwork at the station”_

His earlier annoyance reared its head and hissed; sure that was a message, alright! not even a sorry, not a please or a thank you. Leo thought for a second of saying no… but it wasn’t the cats’ fault that Gavin was an anal workaholic fuck, he typed his answer

_“k.”_

Once in Gavin’s apartment he was set on making himself comfortable. He was tired after the long fucking day full of stupid wedding shit and Elijah Kamski for some fucking reason, going all the way back home was a bother. He threw some leftovers in the microwave, he wasn’t eating cold this time, if he burned the place down so be it!! – he only set it at three minutes – and then helped himself to a soda. The dry food for the cats was on a timer but the wet food he had to find, proceeding to open a number of drawers trying to locate the cans.

“Jeez, Gavin” Leo said opening a drawer full of random bits and pieces, “this is why there are trashcans–” He stopped abruptly “No way…”

There was the feather Leo had just given him, that one broken glow stick, a shard of a green beer bottle, a cute but broken small tin box where Leo used to keep his best pot “I thought I had lost this,” he must have given it to Gavin back when he’d been way too high to remember anything, it was an assortment of little useless, broken things Leo had handed over to him over the years. Leo couldn’t help a little smile. The cats meowed insistently at his heels.

“I know, I know just give me a second” he said closing it, wondering if he’d be able to pretend he’d seen nothing

When the cats were served he settled with his tablet on Gavin’s bed the comforter thrown over his legs, the jerk owed him at least that, Leo thought, trying to remember he’d been angry at him just a few minutes ago. But soon enough the cats were purring besides him and he wasn’t feeling anywhere near as dejected as he had earlier, this beat being angry and alone at home, for sure. He lost track of time watching random videos, it was near midnight when he finally heard the clicking of a key on the door.

“What the Ph–“ he heard Gavin’s voice from the entrance “… Leo?”

“Yeah…?” Leo replied expecting to be told off for… everything, listening intently to Gavin, the sound of a plastic bag, the sound him throwing it into one of the closets outside. When Gavin looked into the bedroom, and to Leo’s surprise, the detective grinned

“We got the fucker!” He said animatedly going into the details of how he and Nines had gone to the pawn shop, easily gotten the CCTV and identified the suspect in the triple homicide case, the bullet vests, the look on the guy’s face when Gavin put the cuffs on him.

“Did you really just recognize a fucking random watch” Leo said with awed interest despite himself, he was supposed to be mad at him, but he’d rarely seen Gavin this excited, and there was the stupid drawer with all his shit and –

“I’ve been going to sleep for the last two months reading about the case and going through the evidence, of course I would recognize the fucking watch” Gavin said arrogantly, then he paused “Didn’t mean to ditch ya”

“I mean, I get it…” Leo said with a sincere shrug “You don’t find murder watches, like, everyday”

“We sure don’t,” Gavin said, taking off his shoes and settling next to Leo on the bed “What did you do?”

“Stupid shit”

“Like what?”

“Really?”

“Sure”

“Look!,” Leo perked up as he always did when offered the slightest sliver of attention “first, I have wanted to show you the cabin for weeks, it’s so cool!” he said bringing up the pictures Hanna had given him on his tablet

“That creepy dump?”

“Hey! It looks super neat, so much cooler than that fucking place with the rats and the carpet, or the one with the mirror fetish”

“Don’t fucking remind me”

“The cake and the invitations are… kinda done” Leo said not really wanting to go into details just now “Then there’s the thing about the stupid judge or whatever, I have no fucking idea what to do with that, do you think they’ll throw me in a cell immediately If I offer them money to fake marry us? I don’t want to go and get someone sketchy I just about managed to get away from that…”

“Don’t sweat it, I’ll get someone”

“Seriously?”

“Kinda owe you one”

“You really are, like, in a great mood, aren’t you?”

“You bet,” Gavin grinned again, stretching lazily on the bed and sounding drowsy “Solving a triple homicide will look great when the Captain sends the paperwork for my promotion” the next moment Gavin was breathing deeply, with his forehead resting against Leo’s arm, completely asleep.

Leo put his tablet aside trying his best not to disturb Gavin or the cats, and thought nothing of curling up next to him thinking of what Kamski had told him earlier.

His dad had not lost a moment; as soon as Gavin was gone he’d called Elijah to fill in his place

“I paid for a tasting for two people, Leo. It would be a shame to waste it” his dad said

Leo didn’t want to read anything extra on his dad’s actions, he didn’t really think him the type to try to play matchmaker, that was probably far too lowly for his intellectual interests, but it was still annoying, it still seemed an imposition of something his dad liked and Leo could barely understand and would rather not have big doses of. His dad and Markus had dropped him at the printers (mistakes had been made there) and then Leo had dragged his feet to the cake tasting place.

To his astonishment, Elijah Kamski did show up to the, as his dad had called it, patisserie (yuck!) looking human for once, still wearing a stupid suit identical to the three hundred Leo had just tried on, but with his glasses and his hair down he didn’t look quite as spooky as the previous times Leo had seen him.

They sat at one of the tables, the attendant gave them a little paper menu; fancy and old fashioned now that everything was electronic, with little check boxes were he was supposed to mark how many tiers the cake would have, the flavors, with extravagant stuff like tamarind and pistachio on the list. Leo really wished Gavin was there, he’d been actually looking forward to this one, stuffing his face with gourmet cake? Awesome! But now he’d have to do it with Elijah Kamski watching him. Leo realized most of his annoyance was because he felt disappointed.

“So, why is my cousin not here?” Kamski asked, looking at the little miniature sample cakes on his plate like he didn’t quite know what to do with them

“He’s working” Leo said, stabbing one of the cakes in his own plate and shoving it into his mouth, this was not exactly what the pastry chef, trained in Paris for 6 years, would want done with his work either

“Couldn’t he ask for the day off? Aren’t these type of appointments set with anticipation”

“They are and he did” Leo said, repeating his previous action on another cake

“I do believe you are supposed to taste these”

“You do it then!” Leo snapped moodily

“Maybe you should reconsider your marriage to my cousin if things like this bother you” Kamski said completely unbothered by Leo’s outbursts

“Maybe _you_ should reconsider…” Leo trailed off not really knowing how to continue “Listen, I know Gavin better than you do, like what were you even trying to do with those stupid questions,” Leo continued trying to get the upper hand… somehow “what did any of that even mean, man?!. I know his work comes first, that’s just how he is, it’s fucking annoying but it wouldn’t be Gavin if he did it any other way”

“My point still stands, if it bothers you –“

“I’m not bothered because he left, I’m bothered because he left me alone with my fucking dad and Markus!”

“Ah… I see…”

“Trying on suits, what the hell! He could at least offer me an out or something” Leo said, forking up another cake “he goes to like, find chopped up bodies or whatever, and I’m left with Markus trying shirts next to me, and you made him, you know how he looks like” Leo said accusatorily waving his cake at him “Do you think it’s fun to try the same shirts he does, and look at us side by side?”

Kamski opened his mouth to answer

“It isn’t!” Leo squeaked before the former CEO could reply “It’s the fucking worse, he’s better than me, I get it! I don’t need to be reminded of it again and again, I already know, alright!”

Maybe an awkward silence would have followed if Leo hadn’t started moving like a pelican trying to swallow a raccoon as he choked with a piece of cake at that very moment. Fortunately, the waitress, an AX400, knew exactly what to do, applying the heimlich maneuver with maximum efficiency to Leo, in front of the handful of other very posh costumers who looked on the scene with lofty annoyance. Through his watering eyes Leo saw Elijah Kamski’s face with an expression of mild surprised distaste as half chewed cake rained on him.

When the waitress deposited Leo back on his seat, he was red faced, more out of embarrassment than having almost died, in a very undignified way which still, seemed to match his style.

“Maybe some water?” Kamski offered, it was a bit of a shock that he’d not left Leo to face the shame alone or that his face could have more than the pale, blank expression of a dead body in a morgue table.

Leo took a sip off the glass looking at his plate, listening to Kamski clean the cake remains from his suit, thinking choking to death would have been better, actually, so many of his problems would have been solved then. He halfheartedly poked at the fresh miniature cakes the waitress had just brought.

“If you asked my cousin –” Kamski said, sounding as cool as ever

“You have cake on your hair” Leo said

“Oh! for the love of –“ Kamski exclaimed combing his fingers through it “Is it gone?”

“Yup!” Leo grinned

“Well, as I was saying” Kamski said trying to recover his unmovable persona “If you asked my cousin, or well, maybe not if you asked, he’s not the forthcoming sort is he? So, if you maybe devised some sort of method to extract those rare honest thoughts that must pass through his brain once or twice a year –“

“Creepy…” Leo muttered

“ – I think you’d find he doesn’t think of many people as highly as he thinks of you, and officer Chen of course, for the sake of accuracy”

Leo scoffed “I’m just a junkie, he’s seen me like sleep on my puke and all sorts of gross shit”

“I never said my cousin didn’t have questionable taste, that’s a given with him”

“Uhm..” Leo hummed noncommittally, looking at the list of cakes, making a mark on the two tier option, that seemed fine, nothing too big.

“He’s agreed to enter this insane charade with you, is that not enough to convince you?”

Leo’s head snapped up “How –?”

“There are very few things in this world I cannot find out –”

“Creepier…”

“I’m not telling anyone,” Kamski continued “What you two get up two is, if nothing else, rather entertaining and since the android revolution settled everything has been quite slow”

“Jeez, thanks!”

“You are Welcome,” Kamski said, taking a sip of his cup of coffee, almost finished although he hadn’t touched the cakes at all “Gavin likes rum cake. Can’t stand pistachio, though”

Leo made two more check marks, one of the tiers would be rum, the other pistachio

Kamski smirked, amused

“In case he pisses me off that day” Leo told him matter of factly

“A smart choice”

Leo sighed now, as he curled up next to Gavin, just looking at him sleep, admittedly feeling a bit like a creep; and wondered if Gavin really thought as highly of him as Kamski had said, Kamski seemed like the type of dude who wouldn’t say something if he wasn’t sure it was true, not because he was a honest guy, but because he’d probably really hate to be proven wrong. Leo closed his eyes, listening to the cats purr and Gavin’s loud breathing, yup, this beat being home alone alright.

Gavin had not meant to fall asleep, much less right next to the dumbass but when he opened his eyes in the morning that was exactly where he found himself. He’d gotten up, prepared for work, and was in his kitchen giving the cats their breakfast when Leo emerged from the bedroom, still half asleep.

“Morning” Leo said with a little sleepy grin

“Yo” Gavin replied “You better like eggs because is all I have”

“You are making breakfast?!” Leo said perking up

“No…”

“You are!” Leo said sitting on the couch with his tablet “Dope!”

“You could help, dumbass!”

Gavin kept waiting for a snarky come back that didn’t happen, when he looked back at Leo he had a clearly constipated look on his face as he looked at the tablet screen

“What the fuck is the matter?” Gavin asked

“Nothing” Leo said, but his previous good mood had been obviously stamped over

Gavin strode to where he sat, yanking the tablet from his hands

“Hey!” Leo complained, but it was too late, Gavin saw the live feed of Carl Manfred and Markus, wearing the suit he’d been trying the previous morning, at some stuffy art event

“I was with them like half the day yesterday and they didn’t invite me,” Leo said softly “Like, I mean, fuck they didn’t even tell me it was happening –”

“You’d fucking hate it there!”

“Yeah, I guess but –”

“You really have to stop this shit!” Gavin said harshly “Would you rather be there than… here” he gestured with his hands at his messy apartment “The cats are much better company than any of those fucking pricks” He took cricket from the couch and placed her on Leo’s lap, that always made him feel better. She chirped her agreement.

Leo pet the cat but his eyes still looked dangerously watery

“Why do you care so much about that old man and the tincan, they are boring as fuck, and you are not near as much fun when you are trying to fit in with them” Gavin said reaching out for Leo and ruffling his hair to make it as messy as he could

“Stop it!” Leo said, almost with a laugh

Gavin huffed out a breath, walked up to the closet and messed up with some plastic bags, he walked back to where Leo was with a purple velvet jacket in his hands,

“What’s that?”

“Saw it yesterday when we were at the pawnshop, thought you’d like it better that those godawful suits”

“Are you for real?” Leo said excitedly

“I’m not wearing it” He said throwing it at Leo

Leo put it on “I can wear it with like a t-shirt and a hoodie”

“Sure” Gavin said, reaching out to fix the collar a little “If I’m going to fake marry you, I rather you looked like yourself not a dummy of whatever the hell you try to be when your old man is around, I hate that guy”

Leo pulled at the sleeves of the jacket, then looked up at him

“Thanks, Gavin”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment. Gavin leaned in. Leo closed his eyes waiting for a kiss. Which he would have gotten if the door bell hadn’t rang, startling them and making them jump away from each other

“Dude!” Leo said “that scared me”

“Who the fuck –” Gavin said striding to the door, looking through the peephole, brusquely opening it

“What the fuck, Anderson?!”

“Is the other kid here, or we’ll have to go pick him up” the Lieutenant said

“Hey, Lieutenant!” Leo said with a little wave from his place on the couch

“Good,” Hank looked at his watch, “you have 20 minutes to get ready, I’ll wait for the two of you downstairs”

“The fuck for?”

“Just get a move on, Reed, we don’t have all day!”

“I have to get to work”

“No you don’t, I talked with Jeffrey you are banned from the station today” Hank said briskly “Oh, and that pompom thing, your cat, the one that’s good at killing critters”

“What about her?”

“Bring her, you’ll need her” Hank said obscurely before walking down the hall

Gavin was not actually sure if he was still asleep and dreaming as he sat in the passenger seat of Hank’s car, Max’s carrier on his lap, Leo – mouth open and snoring – on the back seat having fallen asleep within a second of getting into the car despite the loud metal music playing on the radio and which prevented any sort of conversation from happening, not that Gavin felt like talking, the morning had taken more than one unexpected turn and if Anderson had finally snapped and was kidnapping them for ransom he didn’t have the strength to care, that was one way to get out of the mess they were in, so he kept his bored gaze on the road as they went out of the city and well into the wood roads.

“Are we there yet?” Leo asked sleepily over the music after a couple of hours

“Almost,” Hank replied

“Do you know where we are going?” Leo asked leaning forward into Gavin’s seat

“Nope,” He replied with a small shrug

“I’m starting to feel like, kinda car sick”

“Don’t lean on me then,” Gavin said “If you fucking puke on me I fucking swear, Leo-”

“This is it” Hank said, stopping the car at what looked like the end of a path, nothing visible but big trees and hiking trails. “At least this is as far as the car can go, we have a ten minute walk. There’s a bag under your seat, kid” Hank said to Leo “bring it, would you?”

“uhm…” Leo said, taking out the dark garbage bag from under the seat

He hurried after Gavin, giving him a questioning look when he opened the bag to take a peek. A few pairs of rubber gloves, some brushes, bottles of bleach and soap…

“Did you kill someone, Anderson?” Gavin asked, “Are you bringing us to do your clean up?”

Hank huffed a small laugh “That would be easier to deal with than this” he said as they reached a clearing

“No fucking way!” Leo said excitedly

“You are kidding me” Gavin said tiredly

There was the lake with a dock that had seen much better days but was still standing, and going up from it into the trees there was the cabin Gavin had seen in the pictures Leo had showed him the night before.

“You own this shack?” Gavin asked,

“Afraid so” Hank said without much enthusiasm “Haven’t been up here for a few years, since…,” Hank paused, Gavin didn’t need any more explanations “but you kids seemed to need a place, thought it could get some use before it falls apart”

Leo almost chuckled remembering Hanna’s description of the owner being a bit of a crank as they went up the rotting steps and opened the creaky door to the cabin, a bat diving and nearly missing Gavin’s head, flying upstairs, Max jumped off her owner’s arms and ran in excitedly.

“Max is going to snack on some of those”

“There’s a ton of ‘em in the attic, but the real problem are the spiders and other crawlers”

“Jeez, I really feel like I’m going to be murdered here” Leo said “Awesome!”

“You really are a fucking weirdo” Gavin said, the fond tone in his voice an oddity to his own ears

“Let’s get it moving” Hank said, “There’s a ton of muck to move around”

It was not an exaggeration, there were years of dust, spider webs, old nests, and a few almost mummified carcasses, they cleaned the best they could which wasn’t saying much between the three of them, while Max ran up and down the place not knowing what to sink her claws into first. After a few hours of it the place was looking somewhat decent, Gavin heard the squeak of the wooden stairs.

“Hold it, you aren’t going up there” He said making Leo freeze in the first step

“But –“

“We won’t be using the second floor” Gavin said, then louder “We won’t be using the second floor, Anderson!”

“Good enough for me!” The lieutenant replied back

“Why not?” Leo asked

“There are bats living up there”

“You are afraid of bats?”

“… what? No, I’m not…” Gavin huffed “Their poop is bad for people like you”

“Like me?”

“With your low defenses or whatever that’s called, your bad lungs and shit”

“Ooh…”

“Yeah, upstairs is off limits”

“Where are we going to sleep then?”

“I don’t know, outside? You wanted a camping trip, that’s what you are getting!”

“That’s sick!” Leo said, “Dope!”

Gavin tried to contain a fond grin

“Will you take this down, kid” Hank said, giving some full garbage bags to Leo “I could bring up a mattress or something here” Hank said gesturing to the open space once Leo had gone

“Yeah… that’ll work,” Gavin said with a dismissive shrug “I’ll sweep the hallways upstairs, don’t want any of that crap coming down or whatever” He stopped then turned to the Lieutenant “Hank, that is… thanks…” and before everything could get too mushy for his tastes “This place is a fucking dump, but he likes it”

“That’s alright, son” Hank smirked before patting Gavin on the shoulder “Let’s finish up here, it’s been enough for a day I’d say”

Gavin went down the steps a few minutes later to join Leo where he was sitting on the dock while Hank finished closing up the cabin.

“Look, Gavin!” Leo called out to him, “isn’t all of this the coolest! It’ll be so much fun”

“Sure, it could be much worse” Gavin said with a smirk

“Oh, come on!” Leo pushed him lightly

Gavin leaned in again, his second try of the day, but Max chose that moment to jump on Leo’s lap proudly depositing her best hunt of the day, still very much alive, on his legs. If it was a spider or a beetle or some sort of bug, all that Leo knew was that it was alarmingly big and bulbous and seemed to have way too many legs and like fangs and a disgusting looking spotted yellow color, he sprang from where he was sitting, headbutting Gavin full in the face, scaring Max who ran right into the lake.

“Phck!” Gavin cried in pain

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit” Leo flailed wildly trying to get rid of The Thing, “shit, shit, shit, fuck” he took two steps towards the lake, then two back towards Gavin, not knowing which of the two crisis to attend to first, the bleeding man or the cat yowling in the water

“Get her” Gavin said nasally, waving him away, walking backwards as he leant his head back to deal with his nosebleed and watering eyes, one of his feet going right through the termite infested and half rotten dock

“Fuck!!” He said now painfully trapped as a few splinters cut into his leg, smearing blood from his nosebleed all around himself

“What in the world!” Hank said coming down from the cabin. He helped Gavin scramble up from the hole, while they heard Leo’s cries as he was scratched all over by the cat he was trying to rescue.

“Can’t leave you kids alone for two seconds!”

+

Leo sat in the ugly plastic chairs of the clinic waiting for Gavin to come out, they had almost kissed twice, maybe they’d manage the third time, that was if Gavin hadn’t had time to regret he even tried, better to come clean about the –

“Yo!”

“You okay?” Leo asked as Gavin walked out

“My nose is not broken and I got a tetanus shot, I’ll live,” Gavin replied, feeling a bit ridiculous with his face all patched up “Max?”

“In the car with the Lieutenant, kinda angry at me, but she’s fine”

Gavin sighed “Let’s go, then” he reached for Leo’s hand, and for once, no catastrophe issued.

Once outside Leo took a deep breath and held back

“Uhm, Gavin…”

“Hmm?”

“I did something really dumb”

“What,” Gavin said turning to look at him “like, in the last ten minutes?”

“Yesterday…”

“You are always doing something dumb” Gavin said carelessly, then he looked at Leo’s face “Whatever it is it can’t be worse than everything you have already done” he said bumping his fist gently against Leo’s shoulder “Come on, my bar to be shocked by anything you do is very high”

Leo sighed, taking out a crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handing it to Gavin. Not even the water damage could disguise the luxurious paper or the sparks of the ridiculous pressed-foil stars raining over the stylized print, Gavin ran his eyes through it.

“Like, that’s just like the test copy, and they’ll send the rest to me,” Leo said hurriedly “So, we don’t have to mail them or anything, I don’t know what I’ll tell my dad about it, they were like 200 bucks for 50, like isn’t that fucking stupid, rich people are nuts, man! but anyway…”

“Of course we are not mailing these, are you mental!” Gavin cut in

“I know…”

“We are handing them in person”

“What?!”

“I’m not missing the look on your old man’s face when he has a stroke over this, are you fucking kidding me!” Gavin barked out a laugh

“Right!” Leo found himself grinning widely, he squeezed Gavin’s hand “You should have seen the face of the lady, she asked me if I was serious like at least a dozen times!”

★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ ★ :. . • ○ ° ★ 

. * . . ¸ . ° ¸. * ● ¸ °★ . . °☆ .. 

° ☾ ° ¸. ● ¸ . ★ ° :. . • ° . * :. . ¸ . ● ¸ ★ ★☾ °★ . . °☆ .. • ○ ° * . ☾ °

¸ .★ ° You are Cordially Invited to the Wedding Celebration of★☾ °★

GAVIN “Can’t get my head outta my ass” REED

And

LEO “At least I’m not ODed in a motel parking lot” MANFRED

The Mistake Will be Made at:

Some sketchy cabin in the woods, directions and map attached

August 8, 2041 at 5:00 P.M.

Presents not needed but bring your own damn bug spray.

:. . ¸ . ● ¸ ★ ★☾ °★ . . °☆ ° ☾ ° ¸. ● ¸ . ★ ° :. . • ° 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my friend FauxFili bc their anecdote of their cat dropping a spider next to them is truly the stone upon which this chapter was built.


	7. Chapter 7

The hiking path towards Anderson’s cabin was marked with teal lights so their guests wouldn’t lose their way later that night when they left. Gavin walked through it earlier in the day, already feeling feed up with all of it; he looked around him feeling quite lost and out of his element, their guests were arriving in a steady stream, no sign of Leo though, figures he’d be late.

“Are those really your sartorial choices for your wedding day?” Nines asked, anyone else would raise a judgmental eyebrow at Gavin’s jeans and plain dress shirt with that statement but Nine’s face was as still as it always was

“Fuck off, Nines”

“You look fine, Detective Reed” That blonde Nines liked said politely

“Only you’d think that Simon,” Nines said “You are far too kind”

“Where’s Leo?” Gavin asked, the blonde would know

“He’s not here yet,” the domestic android replied “If I’m not mistaken he was going to pick up his friends, isn’t that right?”

Gavin scoffed and walked away from the pair

Right, he’d forgotten Leo was doing that but the dumbass was still late, any other person would allot extra time, but of course Leo’s brain wasn’t even aware of the existence of such a thing as time management, and so, alone, Gavin surveyed the nightmare.

Ian was taking pictures of everything and everyone, the Captain arrived bridal carrying his wife so her heels wouldn’t sink into the mud, she laughed when the Captain finally let her down on the wooden dock, leaned up to kiss him. Near them there were Nines and his little housewife. The shorter android was fixing Nines’ tie, Nine’s reached up to hold the other’s hand. Gavin let out a huff, that sort of nonsense seemed to come so easily to everyone else but to him–

“Excuse me –” a voice said, it was that girl, what was her name again? The wedding planner was it?

“uhm, I wouldn’t bother you” she continued “Except Leo has not arrived yet –”

“Maybe he’s getting cold feet” Ian said hopefully from a nearby spot as he continued to take pictures

The wedding planner ignored him and continued talking to Gavin

“I left the catering to Mr. Anderson because he was very clear in that no one he didn’t personally known was using his cabin,” She said hurriedly “but he hired the services of a place called” she took in a shaky breath, it hurt her to say it “Chicken Feed…”

Thank fuck, Gavin thought, at least he wouldn’t starve

“Their food hygiene license expired a decade ago,” she went on “they got a C as their sanitation rating–”

“Yo, Kayes!” Gavin waved, the chicken feed owner waved back as he started to set up

“He’s planning on deep frying a turkey!” the wedding planner said, her voice thin with horror. Gavin had heard that tone more than once coming from witnesses of gruesome crimes.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” Gavin barked “Listen Lady, if Anderson is okay with Kayes torching this place down I don’t give a shit”

The girl took in another shaky breath, “Fine,” she said in a measured tone but with an angry blush on her face “Would you sign this waiver then” she extended her tablet to him, he signed. Gavin hoped that’d get rid of her. She opened her mouth as if to say something else, closed it, pointedly turned around and walked away.

“Awful, Gavin!” Tina said, whacking him in the back of his head

“What the fuck was that for?”

“I don’t know, whatever you did to that lovely girl!” Tina said, wearing a light white dress with green herbs embroidered on it which she paired with black leather jacket and hiking boots “it is my duty as your best woman, your groom’s maid so to speak, to make you behave today”

Gavin scoffed “You are having way too much fun with this”

“I’m having a blast! Maud is having quite a good time pretending to be the judge too” Tina waved at the older woman who was in deep conversation with Chris.

Maud was the only person Gavin trusted enough to ask the favor from with the added plus that nobody in the precinct knew her, it meant he had to tell her the truth, she’d laughed at him for at least half an hour, but she was the best phony judge he could ask for.

“Don’t you worry, we’ll see you through it” Tina added 

“Yeah, thanks – ” Gavin said, the thought of how this nonsense would be easier now that Leo was here coming unbidden as the sound of the fool’s laughter drifted from the path.

Leo came into view wearing his old sweats, he was giving a piggy back ride to his friend, the girl with long brown hair. She was wearing a hot pink strapless party dress, looking just like a barbie doll from the eighties, those wearing heels seemed to be having some trouble with the location. The allegedly former drug dealer was with them as well, only the one though. Leo only let the girl down when they had reached the dock, her very high heels tapping on the wood as the group walked towards him and Tina.

“Yo!” Leo called out to them

“You are fucking late” Gavin said,

Leo shrugged it off, and Gavin was annoyed at the grin he felt tugging at his own lips

“Oh my god, that’s bomb!” Amber said pointing at Tina’s boots “I wish I had thought of that!”

“Our dumdums really didn’t think this through” Tina replied

“Where can I drop this” Brad said, brandishing a gym bag

“What is it?” Gavin said suspiciously

“None of your fucking b–”

“It’s Leo’s wedding present!” A voice piped up from the tablet Brad was holding.

Ah, that was right, Leo’s third questionable friend didn’t leave home but apparently that didn’t mean he’d miss this, like it hadn’t meant he couldn’t run a drug house. But Leo had told him they were off that shit, helped him get out of it even, by all Gavin knew that was the truth, and Leo really liked them so–

“Whatever, it can go inside the shack” Gavin spat

“I’m leaving it on the porch” Brad said, not being able to contain a shiver as he looked around at the other guests, a hundred percent of them cops that had arrested him at one time or other, chatting and having drinks.

“This place is bursting with pigs” Brad whispered to the tablet

“Of course it is, poor Leo is marrying into the pigsty,” Jay replied, “Keep low, don’t make eye contact…” the rest of their conversation faded as Brad walked up the wooden steps.

“I have a present for you as well” Amber said, taking a little box out of her purse “Leo talks about your kitty cats a lot, so I made you two this” she opened the box

“That’s so freaking cool!” Leo said taking the porcelain figurine out of the box to examine it

“That’s amazing!” Tina laughed

“Hm. Kitsch.” Ian declared uninvited as he walked by, taking a picture of it and leaving again

“I'm this close to kicking that guy in the butt” Tina said

“Don't hold back” Gavin replied

“It’s a cake topper” Amber chirped, “You don’t have to use it –“

“Are you kidding me, I love it!” Leo said “of course we are using it, right Gavin!”

“What the fuck is a cake topper?” Gavin said as he grimaced at the small figurine in Leo’s hands, two cats, a fluffy ragdoll and a scruffy tabby with their tails intertwined “This dumbass is supposed to be the ragdoll?” Gavin scoffed pointing at Leo

“Of course, he totally is!” Amber chirped protectively, rubbing Leo’s shoulder with sisterly affection

Then again, ragdolls were limp and fluffy no brain dumb fucks that followed you around like puppies, too friendly and trusting without the preservation instinct or sense of suspicion of normal cats that respected themselves, couldn’t leave them unchecked without them getting themselves killed, so actually, yeah, Gavin could – as Leo’s friend would say – totally see it.

“Nevermind him,” Tina said waving her hand, carefully taking the figurine from Leo and placing it in its box again “Come, I’ll show you where the cake is, you can place it on it yourself!” Tina smiled at the other girl giving Gavin a parting warning look

“Shit looks crazy, dude!”

“Yup, and you are fucking late”

“I knooow” Leo whined “and I still need to go change, I asked Simon to please bring the clothes I’ll wear so I couldn’t mess them up …” Leo said tugging nervously at the collar of his sweatshirt “… I’m fucking sweating”

“Hey, dipshit” Gavin said pushing at Leo’s shoulder lightly with his fist “Keep it together, only a few hours more and we are off the hook”

“Right, right” Leo’s expression brightened slightly

When Gavin was left alone he realized he was an easy target for any of the guests crawling all about the place, he walked aimlessly for a while, he’d meant to go snatch a beer from Kayes, but he was setting his fryer and Gavin didn’t want anything to do with any of _that_ fucking mess, he went into the cabin hoping to avoid as many people as he could, if someone else tried to congratulate him –, he went into the bathroom, one of those one-with-nature shit-holes, literally holes where you were supposed to shit in, still better than what was outside.

He stood there in the dim shit-hole light, he could hear the music from outside, the chatter he was only too glad not to be involved in; then louder, Leo’s voice, he felt relieved for a moment, reached for the door handle but stopped when he heard the second one, that was another fucking mess he didn’t want any part of.

Leo felt…. sweaty, and it wasn’t because he’d carried Bambi up to here, even if that was about the limit of his strength; his hands were sweaty, his knees were sweaty, his neck was sweaty, even his butt and the inside of his elbows were sweaty. Gross.

He changed into the clothes he’d prepared for the day, nothing like the suits he’d tried in that posh store, only his favourite jeans, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and that purple jacket Gavin had gotten for him. Leo looked at himself in the mirror “Hey, not half bad, actually” he said to himself, plus whatever Gavin was wearing was much worse, not that Gavin would ever wear anything else, not that he had too, he looked hot in anything anyway –

“Son, do you have a moment?” Carl said coming into the room

“Sure, sup?” Leo said only half paying attention

“I would like you to reconsider this”

“I get it but I really didn’t dig those suits, you know” Leo said pulling at the jacket sleeves “more of a Markus thing than mine, this is better”

“I mean…” Carl hesitated only for a second “The wedding as a whole, son”

Leo choked on his spit “What? It’s like half an hour away, you want me to ditch Gavin at the altar or something?”

“Well, I have been watching you the last few weeks and neither of you seem… at all excited about it.” Carl said seriously “Detective Reed said himself he didn’t really care about any of this, he’s let you do most of the preparations by yourself, he left when you requested him to stay, when you had made all those appointments in advance, what can you really expect from someone like –“

“And what would you know about it, mm?” Leo spat “How many weddings have you had, dad? Oh right, it was always only you by yourself and your precious paintings –”

“Leo!”

“No!” Leo hissed in a forced low tone as he tried not to raise his voice too much “You don’t know anything about Gavin, because you don’t really know anything about me either, right? He’s cool and – and brave and he’s such an awesome detective of course he couldn’t stay to try stupid clothes he had to catch murderers or whatever, that doesn’t matter because I know I can go to him for help no matter what –”

“That’s not what I have seen…”

“Of course not, all you see it’s that he isn’t kissing the ass of every android he sees, well, I’m sorry not everyone likes them right away, Gavin is just afraid, alright? Not that you would know anything about that, he’s afraid androids will come and leave him jobless, that’s fucking normal! Anyone in his place would be afraid, fuck they are afraid, even Lieutenant Anderson was like that. I know Gavin can be a dick and a douchebag but he’s also so badass! He’s pretty much my closest friend, when I’m with him I’m not second guessing everything I do and everything I say every freaking second, which is so much more than I can say about you!”

“It was never my intention –“

“That doesn’t matter! you always make me feel like shit. I’m sorry I’m not perfect like Markus, fuck, even if I was reborn again I could never reach him, but when I’m with Gavin I don’t feel like I have to, he even like trusts me in his apartment by myself with his cats, you know, he’s not thinking I’m going to steal his TV or whatever” to be fair Leo had tried to steal those paintings so his dad keeping an eye on the silver when he was around was not completely uncalled for but, whatever, that was not the point “I never feel like he’s looking down on me, or that everything I say is dumb shit, or that he cannot wait to get rid of me, at least I don’t feel like that now that I have spent so much time with him because I know it’s not true. He’d realize If I went missing, you know, he’d even go out to search –”

Leo took a moment to breathe and then opened his mouth to continue even though he knew he was starting to lose the thread of the conversation it felt really good to tell his dad exactly what he was thinking for once, but right at that moment Ben Collins pottered into the room

“Sorry, to interrupt” Collins walked across to the bathroom door hurriedly, “I just need the restroom for a second and Hank says there’s only the one” he opened the door to it, to reveal no other than Gavin, somehow, just standing there

“Occupied” Gavin spat

“Sorry, Reed, I need the installations for a moment” the older man said, ignoring Gavin’s dibs on the bathroom and grabbing him by an arm, unceremoniously pushing him out before slamming the door shut.

Leo opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish, but didn’t feel too bad about it since his dad and Gavin wore expressions that were almost as awkward.

“Is everything alright?” Markus said from the doorway, always perfect timing, the bastard

“Y-, Yes son, we should go outside, it’s almost time for the ceremony, I think” Carl said nodding towards Leo, Markus helped his dad away and only two goldfish were left in the bowl.

“Jeez, you can laugh already!” Leo said when he finally found his voice “if you hold it any longer you’ll have a stroke or something”

“I’m not laughing, dumbass” Gavin said, “That was some good work, tearing into the old man–”

“My dad is like a hundred and uses a wheel chair…” Leo groaned sitting on the floor “I’m the fucking worst piece of shit”

“Hey, he deserved all he got,” Gavin said sitting beside him

“Serious?”

“Yeah,”

There was a long silence where all that could be heard was the unfortunate Ben Collins struggling with his bowels.

“So… you are not laughing?” Leo said over the flatulent accompaniment

Gavin scoffed, “Not at you, maybe at him, the fucking nerve of that old douche – What the fuck, what the hell are you crying for?!”

“I’m not crying!” Leo sobbed “I only… feel stupid, alright!”

“I mean, you are” Gavin said conversationally “Only a fucking moron would stick up for me like you did –”

“What are you talking about, you _are_ cool, like,” Leo rolled his eyes “you already fucking heard it I’m not saying it again… Jerk! And – I’m only –” Leo gestured despairingly at himself “this..”

Gavin huffed out a breath “Listen,” he raked his fingers through his hair in what could be a nervous gesture, this was the sort of shit that didn’t come easily to him “You are a loyal bastard, and the shit that comes out of your mouth is always… something, you are a resilient fucker, dug yourself out of the red-ice hole you were in, didn’t you?“

Leo sniffled

“You got Tina,” Gavin continued, “she’s worth at least fifty of your old man, my cats are obsessed with you and they don’t just like anybody, you are spoiling those fucks rotten by the way, and there’s those weirdo criminal friends of yours –”

“Ex-criminal –”

“If you say so,” Gavin conceded for once “they are shady as fuck but they got your back right?”

“Right!” Leo nodded

“Right,” Gavin took a deep hurried breath “and I’m also in your corner, for all that’s worth, say the word and I’ll push that old prick into the lake.” That got a little laugh out of Leo “Who cares what that moldy fuck thinks; you should be proud of yourself”

“You mean it?,” Leo said quietly “You are not only saying it to, like, make me shut up?”

Gavin scoffed “As if you ever shut the fuck up”

Leo smiled feeling uncharacteristically shy before leaning in to kiss Gavin, a bit more slowly than he normally would because he didn’t want to risk any accidents this time, and was pleasantly surprised when he felt Gavin kissing him back; it was a messy kiss and to tell the truth it tasted like snot, but when they broke apart he didn’t seem to be grossed out about it. Leo smiled to himself, he really didn’t have to keep second guessing himself when he was with Gavin.

“Stop crying dumbass,” Gavin said with a smirk and ruffling Leo’s hair making it even messier than it already was “they’ll think I’m dragging you to the chopping block at gun point”

Leo laughed softly aware that his nose was running still

“So, are you like my boyfriend now, for real?” Leo asked

“Sure, dumbass” Gavin replied, “You are the one losing here, ask anyone out there”

“Ugggh,” Leo groaned leaning his forehead on Gavin’s shoulder “I can’t believe we still got the wedding thing, I don’t wanna do it”

“Though luck, I’m not fucking doing it by myself so get a move on” Gavin said standing up and offering his hand to help Leo up “The faster we get through it, the faster we can tell everyone to fuck off”

The sound of Collin’s bathroom troubles could still be heard clearly into the room

“Jeez, is he okay?”

“Hell if I know, and I’m not asking,”

Leo hesitated, walking to steps towards the door, thinking he’d knock on it to ask himself. Gavin held him by his shoulder

“Wait, fine,” Gavin said “I’ll go get Anderson, old men shit gotta know old men shit”

+

This was the last stretch, and even to Gavin everything looked rather legit, the rows of dim firefly lights fastened to the dock rails getting brighter as the sun started to go down and the sky turned a deep purple, the bats living in the cabin’s attic were waking up and swooping down, gliding over the lake. The wedding cake, the little cats sat on top, stood on the small table near the seats they had set on the dock.

There was a cool summer breeze; the guests looked at them as Maud went through the whole spiel. Tina stood near him as his best woman, 80’s barbie (he really had to learn her damn name) as Leo’s, Gavin was admittedly zoning out for most of it; he parroted the non-personalized (thank fuck) vows as he was supposed to, then Leo did, they were almost at the end of the circus when he perceived a bit of a hitch.

“The rings?” Maud said with a smile for the second time

“Uhm… I mean… shit…” Leo said going through the useless motions of patting his pockets “I – I Forgot”

“Where are they?” the wedding planner asked efficiently ”I’ll send for them”

“No, I mean” Leo said “I forgot to get any”

Gavin barked out a warm, fond laugh “Of course you did!”

There was a hush in their audience; Carl Manfred coughed a bit too loudly for a bit too long

“Oh! Don’t worry, darling.” Leo’s groom’s maid broke the silence “Brad, my purse, please!”

“Catch!” The ex-drug dealer dutifully tossed the purse at her. Gavin wondered if she had some stolen jewelry they could use in there

“I have…” She said rummaging through it “… gum wrappers!”

“Oh, great idea!” Tina exclaimed walking up to the other girl and taking one of the wrappers. The two groom’s maids hurrying to make make-shift rings, now and then checking the size

“There you go, babe!” 80’s barbie said, placing the Leo-sized ring on Gavin’s hand, as Tina handed the other to Leo.

“I now pronounce you…” Maud said after they exchanged the gum wrappers “Duly Married Partners in Crime” she added with a cheeky smile while Markus’ plus one, a girl with red hair booed at them, Gavin was surprised it was only her “You may kiss now” Maud said finally, and obviously very much pleased with her act

This kiss was quite an improvement on the first one since this one didn’t taste of snot, would be even better if they weren’t being watched by everyone they knew, why did people even do this shit, when they broke apart, Leo was smiling, then his eyes looked past Gavin’s shoulder.

“Oh my, Fuck!!” Leo exclaimed, grabbing Gavin’s arm and pulling him towards him.

A big fire ball exploded near the cabin, the oil from the fryer spilling and instantly bursting into flames, to the awed and surprised gasps of the guests 

“Everything is under control!” Kayes shouted at them, as his one assistant dumped a bucket of water into the fire, only making it flare much worse.

“What the fuck,” the chicken feed owner shouted ”it’s an oil fire you idiot!”

Connor stood up then but before he could do anything Hank grabbed him gently by the shoulder

“Leave it, Connor” Hank said calmly “If the place burns, it burns, nothing lost” he said patting the android’s shoulder

“I ran a few simulations” Nines interjected, “I guessed something like this was quite a possibility –”

“What the hell is that?” Fowler said placing his jacket protectively over his wife’s shoulders, when from the fire they could hear small popping noises

“That must be the small bug spray bottles exploding” Nines said evenly “Not to worry I took a few precautions”

Nines advanced towards the cabin, and then to everyone’s surprise, even Nines’ who took a startled step back, bumping against the table with the wedding cake making it fall to the floor together with the pretty china plates the wedding planner had managed to sneak in, some of them breaking into pieces; the two little cats on top cushioned and safe by the mess of frosting underneath them, though nobody really took notice of that, as just at that moment they were much more preoccupied with the even louder burst of noise; this time accompanied by bright light in a rain of multicolored sparkles as fireworks boomed and wheezed and exploded into the now dark sky

“I did not factor those in” Nines admitted

“Congratulations, Leo!” The former drug dealer in the tablet said, as the one present at the wedding bumped his fist lightly against Leo’s shoulder

“We thought you would like those, wouldn’t have left them there if someone hadn’t told me” Brad said glaring at Gavin

“How was I to know the place was going to burn?” Gavin spat “Do you even have a permit for that, dipshit?”

“What do you think, dickwad?!” Brad spat back, as he was overlapped by the second former drug dealer on the tablet

“Of course we had it, Detective!” the second one said with the polished politeness of a real estate agent “It was in the bag, naturally!”

“Yeah” Brad did a weird shake-nod with his head “That’s right!”

Of course, the shut-in had always been the brains of the operation

“Yeah, right!” Gavin said halfheartedly, staring half at the multicolored sky and half at how it reflected on Leo’s delighted face, of course he’d love this shit, he had to give it to them, his friends knew him quite well. Gavin checked his pocket, still there, all good.

They stood for a long time huddled on the dock at a safe distance from the fire and the pyrotechnics while the only noise to be heard where the booms of the fireworks, the crackling of the flames and the awed gasps of the guests whenever there was a particularly precarious one.

“The turkey is safe!” Kayes shouted from the buffet table he’d set when the fire was eventually controlled; the major losses being a good chunk of the porch, a side wall of the cabin now charred to a crispy black, and one corner of the buffet tablecloth. The declaration of the safety of the turkey got more than a few scattered applauses from the chicken feed regulars.

“Fried turkey time, boys!” Hank said enthusiastically

“Hank, I’m not sure you should have that” Connor said as he followed him “And it’s not only because of the cholesterol, really, Mr. Kayes food leaves a lot to be desired from even the most basic health standards”

“It’s a wedding, Connor, one is supposed to eat crap,”

“The grooms however,” Elijah said gesturing at the cake on the surface of the dock “should be the first ones to have the cake, I believe that’s a tradition”

“Since when do you care about that crap?” Gavin scoffed “If you think I won’t eat that only because it has some dirt on it –”

“Oh, I would never thing something that illogical” Kamski replied

Gavin and Leo squatted near the remnants of the cake, both of them thinking it was still perfectly fine to eat. Leo offered a piece of it to Gavin, Gavin rolled his eyes but he took a bite

“What the fuck, it tastes like literal shit” Gavin said spitting it out immediately

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help it!” Leo laughed, “Dude, the look on your face!”

“Are you trying to fucking kill me?!”

“Here, this one will be good,” Leo tried to say through his laughter

“Burn me once, dumbass –”

“I promise you, Jerk!” Leo insisted

Gavin rolled his eyes but he bit again, and yeah this one didn’t taste like ass; he grabbed a good handful of the side that was inedible and smashed it on Leo’s face

“Dude, not fair! I wasn’t ready” Leo laughed, taking his own handful and smashing on Gavin’s face

“Fuck that, guys, leave something for the rest of us!” Tina said

“Who is having some of the dirt cake?" Amber asked prettily as she picked up a few of the only-chipped plates off the floor "Raise your hand, please!”

+

“How does it look?” Leo said hanging that hideous frog taxidermy picture of his on the wall of Gavin’s apartment.

“Fucking grotesque, the cats will have a heart attack”

“I mean if it’s crooked, jerk!" Leo said "And the cats like it, right, Cricket?”

“Uhm, then it’s fine” Gavin replied taking a swig of his beer as Cricked chirped her agreement with Leo

The nasty dead frogs picture made it official. Having Leo move in seemed only natural, especially now that they were dating and their con was, technically, only half a con and Gavin could look Fowler in the eye again. In the past Gavin would have dumped anyone who got comfortable enough with him to suggest such a thing, not that he’d ever had the opportunity, most of the hook ups that threatened to turn into actual relationships going up in flames after they were stood up those first three or four times because Gavin had decided to put on some extra time at work and had not even thought to text.

Now that Leo was actually here Gavin was surprised, maybe even a bit suspicious, at how easy it was, he’d often thought his apartment was a bit too quiet, and he wasn’t one to play music a lot, or leave the dumb tv prattling away in the background, now that Leo was around, things weren’t ever quiet for too long. 

His brain strained to identify the emotion he was feeling, not being constantly on edge was something new, weird, but not unpleasant. Leo jumped off the chair he’d been standing on to hang the picture

“Hey, open your hand,” Leo said, as he went to stand next to him near the kitchen bar

Gavin tried not to grin as he did so; Leo placed a small piece of charred wood on his hand, part of Hank’s porch most likely

“More trash?” Gavin said, not being able to contain the grin any longer

“Yup!”

Gavin thought for a second, and sure why not. He walked to the door of their laundry room; searching for the jeans he’d worn at the wedding, which still a full week later, were crumpled in the laundry basket

“Alright, open your hand?” Gavin said returning to were Leo stood

“What,” Leo said squinting at him suspiciously “What for? Why?”

“You are always asking me to do it, so now you do it, dumbass!”

“Is it something nasty? Is this revenge for the cake?”

“It isn’t,” Gavin huffed “Just do it, will you?!”

Leo opened his hand but leaned away

“Hell, you are so skittish,” Gavin said as he placed the small object without any fanfare on Leo’s hand

Leo stared at it, the gears of his brain trying to recognize what it was, he looked at it, then at the jeans it had come from, then back at it

“You motherfucker,” Leo’s lips broke into a crooked grin turning the object in his hands “If you had a ring why didn’t you say something?!”

“It was none of their fucking business” Gavin said “And I only got the one”

“Oh fuck!” Leo said as the ring escaped his fingers, rolling down the floor, Rex hurried to play with it

“Shit, Leo, you can just say you don’t want it” Gavin grinned once he’d wrestled the ring back from the cat

“Yo, fuck that, no take backs!” Leo said taking the ring from him again and examining it

A simple platinum ring with a liquid multicolor band going all around it, it was basically a mood ring, changed colors and shit, any doubts Gavin had had when he bought it had vanished when the fireworks lighted up. He’d actually found the perfect ring for Leo, so much better than that red-ice piece of crap. He’d bought the trinket on a whim hadn’t really meant to give it to Leo during the wedding or today or ever, or maybe he had.

“It says ‘Leo Reed’ on the inside” Leo said suddenly in a very quiet voice

“I mean” Gavin sputtered, “You can go change it if you want, I just thought you could get some distance from your old man and shit, now that you have an excuse to do it and what not, juice this thing for all it's got, if you want...”

“Really?” Leo said, his voice cracking “You wouldn’t mind?”

“If I did I wouldn’t offer – don’t fucking cry again!”

“I’m not crying!” Leo said his eyes burning slightly “but what– what– if we break up?”

Gavin took another swig of his beer “If we do you can keep the name if you want it, or throw it away if you don’t, gotta be better than your old man’s in any case, right?”

“You bet!” Leo said putting the ring on and looking at it slowly changing color on his finger

Gavin glanced at Leo “Besides” he continued “if we did we would have to have a fake-ass divorce, and I’m not going through that, breaking up wouldn’t be worth the fucking hassle”

“Right!” Leo laughed before Gavin leaned in for a long kiss

Rex and Max chased each other around their feet, while Cricket purred curled up on her favourite chair. The two new, small, porcelain cats were there too, maybe placed a bit too deep into the bookshelf so they weren’t obvious right away, but safe and rather pleased with their new home.

* * *

NOTES:

Thank you so much for reading! Writing this story brought me lots of joy this year that was so difficult for everyone, I hope it gave you some chuckles too! Have a good end of the year, my lads! ówó

And as always you can also find me on[ tumblr](https://getoutofthewater.tumblr.com/)


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